Justice and Law in The North American Socialist Commonwealth
The legal system of The Commonwealth is based off of a healthy mix of Civil and Common Law. On the one hand, the basis of law is determined by the National (and less often, Local and District) Legislature. However, on the other hand individual judiciaries are allowed some measure of control on the legal system when circumstances are deemed extreme, or the constitutionality of a law comes into question. Additionally, Judges are allowed full rights to sentence convicted criminals as they see fit, within a limited framework provided by certain laws to limit extremes on the part of certain judges.
Most common forms of punishment are Fines and National Service. Fines, generally reserved for non-felony crimes, such as Petty Theft, Traffic Violations, and similar deeds which cause limited harm to victims or society in general, are generally paid once, to the victim or to the state as deemed necessary, though cases when both were paid as a sentence are not entirely unheard of. National Service is reserved for low tier felonies, typically those resulting in moderate to severe harm to society. National service is oft called "community reparations", because it involves the convicted working on a certain job for a set amount of time to repay their debt to society, working a dangerous job (such as military service) will often reduce the amount of time required. During time in National Service, felons are rehabilitated and reeducated in the hopes that they will be remade as productive members of society. Sometimes, a judge may instead issue a sentence of "Public Humiliation", where a convict of a crime will be expected to perform some humiliating act in the municipality where the crime was committed, though this is generally reserved only for civil crimes and the least severe of felonies.
Capital Punishment is used, but only in the most severe crimes, with those being murder (premeditated), rape, and treason (corruption of political officials, or those managing select hazardous fields is in this case treason). Typical forms of execution are firing squad, lethal injection, or gas exposure, however in one case beheading was used. Death sentences are not doled out lightly and great pressure is applied on judges to conserve this sentence only when they feel a particular criminal cannot be rehabilitated and the only solution is to remove said criminal from society permanently.
There are four kinds of law in the Commonwealth. The first, and most important is the legal foundations in the Constitution, which is to be considered the highest law of the entire Commonwealth. The second is National Law, which are laws passed by the Parliament and the Congress of Soviets, as well as international treaties signed by duly appointed or elected representatives and ratified by the Congress of Soviets. National Law is overridden by the Constitution, and in the case of Autonomous Districts, District Law, and it applies to the entire nation (again barring Autonomous District Law). The third law is District Law, those written by district legislatures for problems that apply to districts. In this case the law only applies to a District. District Laws are overridden by National Law and the Constitution. Laws made by Autonomous Districts take precedent over National Law (usually), but are always overridden by the Constitution. Finally Municipal Law is that created by Municipalities. Municipal Law is considered inferior to all other forms of law.
