Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

The defense lawyer looked at his notes. “There are a number of questions I’d like to ask which I think would be very relevant but I’m not allowed to ask them.”

“Bring it up at the appeal if you have to. Would the prosecution lawyer like to ask any questions?”

“Yes,” said Bildrin. He stood in front of me and said, “I believe you’re familiar with Winemaker teachings on sexual behaviour?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to sumarize them for me.”

“No.”

“Sorry but will you sumarize them?”

“You’re only alowed to have sex with somebody you’re married to. Only one man can marry one woman. Same sex marriage is not allowed but psychic men can marry psychic women. A girl can’t get married until she’s at least twelve and a boy can’t until he’s at least thirteen. You can only marry another Winemaker, but it could be a convert, who’s unmarried and agrees to marry you.”

“Have you known any Haprihagfen to break any of those laws?”

I thought about Iandris’s comments about Stone and Plentari but I didn’t really understand what was going on there. “No.”

“Thank you, no more questions.”

As I was going back to my seat, I heard Ice, who was now on the witness dias, say. “Before I go any farther, I’d like to know if I need legal representation.”

“No. Now can ...”

“Sorry,” Ice interrupted, “but I don’t find that answer convincing. Your questions to the previous witnesses suggests that you have a political agenda contrary to the interests of my religion. Can you assure me that any answers I give won’t be used in legal proceedings against me, the Winemakers, Haprihagfen or my family?”

“You’re a witness, witnesses don’t need legal representation.”

“Under the legal proceedings act section five subsection fourteen, witnesses are entitled to legal representation if there’s reason to believe that their testimony is likely to be used as evidence against them, their relatives or an organization to which they belong.”

“The witness is quite correct,” said the judge.

“Yes, I’m sure that won’t be the case,” said the lawyer.

“Am I right in thinking that your questioning is going to relate to the lack of prostitutes in the Vineyard?” asked Ice. “Judging from your questions to the previous witnesses, it seems that your extenuating circumstances defense is going to be that your client had no choice but to attack children as he’s a pedophile and is trapped in a town with no prostitutes and had to do something approximating to using Temple Prostitutes because of Yoldasia’s Old Magic spell.”

“So you believe it’s wrong not to have prostitutes?”

“Doesn’t your clientele include the Minris school board?” asked Ice.

“You didn’t answer my last question.”

“I haven’t clarified that I don’t need legal representation.”

“Can we get this woman legal representation?” asked the judge, looking at the audience. “Come on there must be some lawyers here who aren’t conducting the trial!” She pointed at a man. “You’re a lawyer!”

A man came out the crowd and walked up to the witness dias.

“Sorry,” said Ice, “but doesn’t your clientele include the Minris school board?”

“I have many clients,” said the newly arrived lawyer.

“And you’re aware that Haprihagfen have multiple unresolved lawsuits against the school board, unresolved because they’ve hired all lawyers licenced to work in Minris, presumably including yourself.”

“I’m not aware of the details of those cases and I’m not sure if they’re relevant.”

“Mr. Rolat!” said the judge looking sternly at the lawyer she’d just pulled from the audience. “Is there a conflict of interest here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I could be asked questions, the answers to which would be relevant to our disputes with the school board,” said Ice, “and may be worded in such a way that they would be misleading in a different context, particularly as I’m sure that the defence council has also been employed by the school board and has shown hostility towards Winemakers by his questions to other witnesses. This lawyer may be unreliable in advising me about such questions.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Rolat.

“I’m not hostile to Winemakers,” said the defense lawyer, “I just believe every man has a right to easily available prostitutes!”

“Is this true?” the judge asked the defense lawyer, clearly getting rather cross.

“Do you know what it’s like not being able to get a prostitute?” asked the defense lawyer.

“I meant about all the lawyers being hired by the school board!” said the judge.

“I resent the witness’s allegations of religionism on my part,” said the defence lawyer.

“But you have been employed by the school board?”

“Briefly, a long time ago.”

“I believe that either you should accuse yourself and find a lawyer who doesn’t have a conflict of interest and this witness requires legal representation,” said the judge.

“I believe the witness is correct in claiming that there are no lawyers who are licensed to work in this district and would not have similar issues to us,” said Rolat.

“Are you saying that the school board’s misuse of the legal system has made it impossible to proceed with this trial?” asked the judge.

There was a pause and then the defense lawyer said, “Would it be possible to licence a lawyer, just for this case?”

“The legal code has no such provision,” said the judge. “It may be possible to find a lawyer, we need two lawyers, who are new to the district to replace yourself and act as legal council for Ice. Maybe we could raise this to a federal case but then it would have to be heard in Targraph and we can’t do that because the defendant’s got a spell keeping him in Minris.”

The mayor stood up and walked onto the stage, “Sorry,” he said, “I would like to file a claim of interest in that providing a lawyer who could act for the Winemakers or raising this trial and therefore related trials to federal level would endanger a considerable financial investment by the town and is likely to cause considerable problems due to delayed justice.”

“What financial investment?” asked the judge.

“The school board hiring all the lawyers in the district so the Winemakers couldn’t use them to sue the school board, very probably bankrupting the town ...”

“The school board shouldn’t have discriminated against Winemakers to start with!” said Ice.

The mayor continued, “There’s also the issue of cases going back decades which could be highly problematic if they actually came to trial.”

“There’s such a thing as a statute of limitations,” said the judge, “which doesn’t apply if the case was postponed for reasons beyond the plaintiff's control. Feces! I’ll have to postpone this case until this matter can be resolved!”

“In that case, can I ..?” the defense lawyer started to ask.

“No!” said the judge. “You’re no longer able to act for Lishrashic! In fact that would mean that this whole trial has to be declared a mistrial and ...”

“That would violate my right to speedy justice!” said Lishrashic.

“You’re only supposed to speak through your legal... You planned this didn’t you!” said the judge crossly. “The only way to resolve this mess is to change the law, which will take a long time and I have no choice but to declare Lishrashic innocent on grounds of impossible trial ...”

Tenenet’s mother stood up and shouted, “You’re letting this bleeding annus off! What about my daughter’s right to speedy justice?”

“Anybody can get off anything in this district by finding a way to involve the Winemakers!” said the judge. “This is a travesty of justice and I very much hope ..!”

Her last few words were drowned out as the audience erupted in a corus of anger. Several police officers, I think some of them had been brought in specially as I didn’t recognise them, came onto the stage. One of them attacked Lishrashic and another started fighting that officer.