Filing a judicial case

Your community can run a judicial system, and JUDICIAL is your side of it. It is roleplay - an invented system for an invented town.

The tab carries a number when the judicial desk has sent you something you have not read.

Judicial notices

Summonses, hearing dates, reschedules and outcomes appear at the top. An unread notice is highlighted; MARK ALL READ clears them. Nothing is deleted - the case itself is the record.

If a hearing moves, the notice tells you the new time **and the reason the judicial desk gave**. That is not decoration: you are being asked to change your plans and you are entitled to know why.

My cases

Every case involving any of your characters, whether you filed it or somebody filed it against you. Each card shows the docket number, where the case has got to, the next hearing if one is listed, your plea if you have entered one, and the outcome once there is one.

Entering a plea

If one of your characters is the defendant on a criminal case, the card carries a plea control: guilty, not guilty or no contest.

- Enter it before the hearing. The judicial desk is told as soon as you do. - You can change it while the case is still open. Every version is kept and the judicial desk can see the history, which is the point - a plea that could be quietly swapped would be worth nothing. - Pleas close once the case has been heard.

A plea only ever appears on your own character's case. There is no way to enter one on anybody else's, from any screen.

Filing a civil case

FILE A CIVIL CASE brings a matter to the judicial desk yourself. You need:

- which of your characters is filing - a case is filed by a character, not by an account; - one respondent - either another character or one of your community's departments, not both; - what the case is about, in a few words; - what happened, in your own words; - what you are asking for - an amount, an order, an apology.

Filing puts the case straight onto the docket. The judicial desk is told at once, and every update after that - a hearing, a decision - reaches you here.

Each character may have up to five open cases at a time. Wait for one to finish before filing another.

What you cannot do

- File as somebody else's character. - File against a character or department in a different community. - Have a character sue itself. - Touch another player's case, or another community's docket, in any way.

These are enforced on the server, not by the form, and every one of them is covered by an automated test that runs against a real server.

Who else sees it

A case is a public record inside your community: the judicial desk sees the docket, and officers involved in the case are told when it is scheduled or decided. A conviction is added to your character's records index, so an officer running the name will see it. An acquittal or a dismissal is not - being charged and winning does not go on your record.

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