The Wordsmith's Forge

>> In the scenario that you propose, just like the more familiar ones, there's no way for the people making these fiscal decisions to be held RESPONSIBLE for their behavior,<<

Money insulates people from consequences. That's a problem, because then they have little incentive to behave decently. Plus the modern trend of things being done so collectively that there is no human being who can be held accountable at all.

>> in a timely manner. What happened to speedy fair trials.<<

Variously:

* People stopped caring about it.

* Not enough people wanted to do that kind of work.

* Various programs ran up the number of cases being pushed through, without an increase in people to process them. I've heard stories of people, especially those who aren't fluent in English or don't know their rights, being pushed through "trials" by the dozens that just amount to a judge rubber-stamping their "felon" status.

* More and more people attempt to solve things via lawsuit that used to be talked out in person. Many factors play into this, including but not limited to:
-- People move around more, so you probably won't be dealing with the same ones a few years later.
-- Far fewer people know their neighbors.
-- Decades of less actual childraising means lower social skills on average.
-- When people can't afford medical care, often the only way for something to get fixed is to force someone else to pay for it.


Meanwhile over in Terramagne, people do still care about things, and they have a bunch of things to manage the flow.

* People are expected and educated to solve their own problems as much as possible.

* If you can't, your first stop is usually a negotiation / mediation expert, not a lawyer.

* You can also get a police adjudicator if a law has been broken. This is often used if someone has made a mistake they want to fix, but you can also use that angle to formalize an agreement like "the neighbor kid broke a $2000 picture window and will spend the summer mowing lawns to pay for it." We've seen this with Turk and Stylet.

* There are many alternative justice programs to handle things like teen misbehavior, veteran malfunctions, immigrant / refugee issues, substance abuse, minor municipal violations, etc. This greatly reduces the number of cases in the legal system.

* So the courts primarily handle major cases, interstate issues, and incidents where the perpetrator is not sorry and refuses to work things out or make amends. We've seen this with Carl Bernhardt.

* Some cases are expedited. Pretty much anything involving superpowers is, because it's so hard to hold a soup against their will and resolving matters quickly also keeps the public calm. So are cases that involve people who don't live in the locale where it happened, like tourists. Anything boiling over in the news may also get expedited.

* And they have supervillains for backup, if the legal system fails to deliver justice. If you buy your way out of a severe traffic offense, some strongman may come turn your car into a small, metallic pancake.

* That's before getting into the slow evolution of soup justice with blue plates in America, the gentlemen's agreements in Italy, and how the Maldives is adding soups to their infrastructure overall.