Legal System

The legal system of Redmont draws on three kinds of law. Congress writes the Codes and other Acts. Judges make precedent when they decide cases. The Supreme Court writes the Court Rules.

The Codes work are similar to a civil law system where there is a fixed list of crimes, although they are non-exhaustive. Thus, Redmont relies heavily on a Common law system that allows judges to recognize new wrongs, and for past court decisions to apply precedent to future ones.

Real world legal systems

In a common law system, used in England, the United States and Canada, judges help make the law. When a court decides a case, later courts follow that decision on the same question. This is called Precedent.

In a civil law system, used in France, Germany and most of Europe, the law is written down in massive books called codes, such as the Napoleonic Code. Judges apply the code, and their decisions do not formally bind later courts.

Some places use a mix of both, such as Scotland and Louisiana. Redmont is one of these mixed systems.

Criminal Law: a closed list

The Criminal Code Act says it is "the exclusive and exhaustive listing of criminal offences within the jurisdiction of Redmont." Nobody can be charged with a crime that is not in the Code, and any new crime has to be added to the Code by Congress (Part I, §3).

A judge cannot create any new crimes. If what someone did is not in the Criminal Code, it may still be a civil wrong, but it cannot be prosecuted. There is one exception. Under Court Rule 1.4.3, "Contempt at Common Law" can be punished without a written offense. The Criminal Code of Canada works the same way with the same exception. England, on the other hand, has some crimes, including murder, that no statute defines.

The entire Criminal Code was itself repealed during the July 2026 protests and restored by Congress the following month.

Civil Law: an open list

The Redmont Civil Code Act calls itself "a non-exhaustive listing of civil violations" (Part I, §3). It explicity states that you can sue over a harm the Code does not list, if common law principles or past cases support it.

Any civil wrong created by an Act of Congress is void unless it is added to the Civil Code (except for the Bankruptcy Act, for some reason). This ensures that Congress keeps every civil wrong in one place, so players can find them all easily.

However, the Civil Code is only a starting point, and judges can add new civil wrongs through common law.

Common Law

Both Codes start with a section called "Common Law Principles." It tells courts to read the Code in line with natural justice and common law, and says that "judicial reasoning and precedent may inform interpretation and application of this Code where the law is silent or ambiguous."

The next section tells courts to read the Code by its purpose and avoid readings that lead to absurd or unjust results. This is the purposive approach.

Precedent

The main ruling on precedent comes from a separate opinion in In re [2023] SCR 5 ([2026] SCR 4). While the majority opinion of the judges rejected the appeal on statutory-limitation and constitutional grounds, Associate Justice Smallfries4 separately layed out how precedent should work in Redmont: courts should normally follow earlier decisions, but can overrule one after weighing three things:

1. How well it was reasoned. A decision with little or no explanation is easier to overturn.
2. Whether the rule works in practice. A rule that is hard to follow can be replaced with a simpler one.
3. How much people rely on it. A rule nobody uses is easier to drop than one used every day, such as basic contract rules.

The US Supreme Court uses a similar test to overrule previous decisions, like as in Janus v. AFSCME (2018). In 1966 the British House of Lords issued a Practice Statement saying it could depart from its own past decisions.

However, it is not settled how binding this test actually is, as it has only been applied by Smallfries4 himself to overrule [2022] SCR 20 and wrote that future courts "must forever be bound by this guide for overturning it." 4.

The situation became more complicated in [2026] SCR 7. The Supreme Court questioned whether a decision by one Federal Court judge actually binds other Federal Court judges. It said Federal Court precedent is "certainly persuasive" and might be mandatory when the same judge later faces the same issue, but suggested that the Federal Court allows different judges to reach different conclusions on the same legal question. While Redmont has vertical precedent to lower Courts, the horizontal precedent within the same Court remains disputed.

Real-life law

Court Rule 1.12 generally prohibits citing real-life law in a Redmont court. That includes statutes, court cases, legal textbooks and foreign constitutions. A lawyer can mention a real-world idea only if they explain it in their own words, base the argument on Redmont law, and do not ask the court to adopt the outside rule.

This makes Redmont highly unusual. Most new countries that adopted a common law started by copying an existing body of law. The United States took on English law through reception statutes after independence. While Redmont uses common law methods, it has to build every rule on its own. This makes Redmont application of common law very different from real-world countries.

As a result, some rules that would have been developed over time, such as standing and res judicata are written into the Court Rules.

Additionally, this creates an unusual situation where Redmont statutes repeatedly invoke concepts such as “common law,” “natural justice,” “mandamus,” and “stare decisis,” while Rule 1.12 prevents litigants from using the centuries of real-world authorities that normally define those concepts.

Court Rules

Besides the Codes and precedent, there is a third source of law: the Court Rules, written by the Supreme Court itself. They cover things like how to file a complaint, deadlines and appeals, but they also decide who is allowed to sue, when a case must be thrown out, and contempt of court.

They only apply where no Act of Congress or the Constitution already covers. The unusual part is how they change. An amendment to the Court Rules is simply "announced in the DemocracyCraft Discord." No vote, no involvement from Congress. Currently, the Supreme Court could instantly change who is allowed to sue, or when a case gets dismissed.

Old names, new meanings

The Court Rules list the traditional writs by their Latin names: habeas corpus, mandamus, certiorari, quo warranto, coram nobis, scire facias and ne exeat. As real-life cases cannot be cited, Redmont courts have to decide for themselves what these writs actually mean.

Hierarchy

Redmont's laws roughly follow this hierarchy (from top to bottom):

• Constitution
• Acts of Congress
• Supreme Court Court Rules
• Lower-court local rules (if applicable)
• Binding Precedent
  • Supreme Court
  • Federal Court
  • District Court
• Judicial interpretation

How judges hold the law

Representatives serve two-month terms, and senators and the President serve four. Federal Court judges and District Court magistrates serve for no fixed term, although magistrates may be removed by the Supreme Court at any time. Supreme Court justices serve renewable six-month terms.

Because legislative terms are short and membership can change frequently, the judiciary has greater continuity through Precedent and the Court Rules.

Comparison

	Where crimes come from	Where civil wrongs come from	Horizontal precedent?	Can courts use outside law?	Who writes the court rules?
Redmont	Written law	Both	Disputed	No	Top court
England	Both	Both	Mixed	Yes	Rule committees
United States	Mostly written law	Both	Mixed	Yes	Supreme Court and rule committees
Japan	Written law	Mostly written law	No	Yes	Supreme Court
France	Written law	Written law	No	Yes	Government and legislature

See also

• Judiciary
• Supreme Court
• Federal Court
• District Court
• Constitution

External links

• List of national legal systems (Wikipedia)
• Comparative law (Wikipedia)