Caning in Themiclesia
Caning in Themiclesia was part of the penal law from antiquity until 1957. Generally, it was imposed by statute for crimes meriting punishments less severe than enslavement or death. It is similar to, but legally not the same, as caning administered for procedural offences in judicial inquiry or trial. It was also used as a means of discipline in the legal system and in the armed forces until the same year.
In the past, caning was administered with a rod made of hard wood, usually brought down from over the administrator's head on the victim in a prone position. For civilians, the maximal combined sentence for caning was 1,200 strokes, even if the sum for various offences exceeded that number; for the army, the maximum was 2,000, and there was no stipulated maximum for crimes committed in office. The maximum number imposed for a single crime was 500 strokes. In its ultimate form prior to abolition, a wooden plank, with rounded edges, is used to beat the buttocks of the victim that is protected by a wooden frame, positioned such that the plank would not unduly hurt the victim's bones.
Caning often resulted in death in ancient Themiclesia, leading to policies that sought to regulate its practice and occasional moratoria. It became the rule that the administrating official cannot recuperate or take refreshments during the caning session, so that it was unusual for any sentence exceeding 300 or 400 strokes or so to be carried out fully. Furthermore, by the 12th century, the weight and dimensions of the caning instrument was regulated. The introduction of limited-term imprisonment in 1281 allowed the commutation of various caning sentences to incarceration, up to 11 years in total; however, the combination of several smaller sentences could still result in a sentence of up to 1,200 strokes.
History
Antiquity and medieval period
1400 – 1800
1800 – 1957
Slak Tak CJ, Chief Justice of Appeal from 1951 – 1955, was one of the last officials in the judicial system to be caned for an official offence. In 1953 he oversaw proceedings from the case of Mrak v Smip, where it seems out of a personal dislike for Mrak he repeatedly delayed or deliberately made errors in interlocutory proceedings to frustrate Mrak's case, even though he was not on the bench to which the case was assigned. Mrak's attorney was initially confused but over several months found out that Tak was behind the antics faced by his client. As Tak had not taken any bribes and the decisions appeared to be within the discretion of his office, a complaint was petitioned to the House of Lords. On Jun. 10, 1955, the House of Lords sentenced Tak to 100 strokes and delivered the rescript addressed to Tak as the senior judge of the Court of Appeal.
Upon receipt of the judgment, Tak had the duty of selecting an officer of the court to cane himself, which he declined to do on the grounds that a judge cannot be made to handle his own case. Furthermore, Tak sent his own petition to the House of Lords arguing that caning judges had been out of practice for more than 100 years—then considered the threshold for parliamentary review whether a procedure was still legally available. The Clerk of the Parliaments, however, opined that while a judge had not been caned for more than 100 years, other judicial officials have been sentenced to caning and (for a court recorder) as late as 1922, and so the petition was presented to the House with the Clerk's observations and was denied. Given Tak's default in executing the rescript, a new rescript was issued in October addressed to Nem J, who ultimately selected the 66-year-old barrister Mr. Kran Par to cane Tak, which occurred privately in his own courtroom and in the attendance of Tak's family physician.
The session lasted about a half-hour with Tak being carried out of the courtroom in a gursney and into the care of St. Edward's hospital several blocks away, where he stayed for the next two weeks. Par was Tak's longtime colleague and had worked closely with him for some years, and Nem seems to have used his special powers with discretion, since Tak had enemies amongst the barristers of the court and could have expected them to take the issue personally. Nevertheless, Nem was not so tactless as to recommend Tak's student or known friends for the task. Par later recounted in 1970 that, upon being informed he was to cane Tak, he moved his garden shed several times and replanted all the flowers in his garden to ensure his back and arms would tire out quickly.