Imperial presence
The imperial precinct (禦在處, mgah-dzeq-qlrah) under Themiclesian law is an imaginary, legal area around the Empreror where special laws are in effect, superseding the laws in effect elsewhere.
The origins of this imaginary confine situated around the physical person of the Emperor may lie in the sacerdotal functions of the monarch, against which certain actions were considered offensive only when done near him or some place or object representing him. Such a precinct also exists around the symbolic representations of not only gods but also the ancestors of various individuals, in which individuals were required to exercise a certain degree of reverence or at least circumspection. Subsequently, the precinct was enhanced and reshaped to protect the political importance of the monarchy, and it acquired the function of a security perimeter since the hegemonic period of the 3rd century.
The physical location of the precinct varied over the ages. After the restoration of 1531, the precinct was explicitly restricted to the Fore Hall (先殿) as well as any enclosed structure where the Emperor was physically located.
Until the penal reforms of 1911 (which also abolished the notion of penal slavery), it was an offence to defile the imperial precinct by actions such as urination or coarse language. There was punishment for showing contempt within imperial precinct, such as refusing to acknowledging the Emperor by appropriate gestures, by coming and going from him against his commands, and by insulting him verbally. It was a capital and felonious (carried forfeiture of property when convicted) offence to carry "blades and ranged weapons with their missiles" into the imperial precinct.
Even though the law had been amended to allow the carrying of weapons around the Emperor whenever the Government permits it, the Emperor's nearest bodyguards, the Gentlement of the Household, symbolically remove the tips of their spears when they enter the Fore Hall whenever they accompany Emperor within.