After the Court of Inquiry was established, a long line of case files waited on Shanjue's desk every day. The code unfolded at his thought, and cases he had pulled could appear right beside it, but the line waiting for review had no visible end.
One day in Heaven, for him, meant a whole year of Mortal Realm cases.
——
Local courts handled ordinary cases. The three hundred magistrates investigated and reviewed by district, catching cross-district cases and appeals the local level wouldn't handle. Only major criminal cases, death sentences, and rulings involving disputes over the law were sent to Shanjue for final approval.
He didn't have to copy out each ruling again. Once his fingertip passed over the approval field, the signature was done; but before he really signed, he still had to know why each ruling held.
——
Around the hundredth file, he usually paused, took a sip of the milk tea Shunyi had left at the corner of his desk, and kept reading.
After the three hundredth, he would go out for a bowl of shaved ice. He came back for the next batch only after finishing it.
——
Sometimes he wanted to sit a little longer. At those times, he would slip his hand into his pocket and touch the strawberry hair clip he had always kept.
He would take it out and look at it, remember why he had ended up in this seat, then put the hair clip away and go back to reviewing files.
——
In the fiftieth year, Shanjue's legal reforms completed their third round of revision. Predatory contracts had become as rare in the world as morning dew in the sun.
That year, the Three Realms Court of Inquiry took in four times as many cases as in its first year.
It wasn't that there was more crime.
It was that those cases never used to make it to court.
——
That year, another granary arson case was sent to him. The local Law Enforcement Bureau's recommendation for fast closure was only three pages long, and the magistrate in charge had drafted a verdict following it exactly, and sent it up for approval.
[Charge: Granary arson]
[Defendant: No alibi]
[Proposed verdict: Guilty]
[Recommendation: Fast closure]
Shanjue read it.
He didn't sign.
He pressed a finger to the last page, and the word for returned appeared.
"Returned. Having no alibi is not evidence of guilt."
He opened another page, ordering an immediate review of the detention and an investigation into why the magistrate in charge had used that recommendation.
The file had made it all the way up to him, so the reviews along the way were responsible too. He listed everyone who had signed off along the route.
The man had already been held for eleven days. The review found no grounds for continued detention, and he was released that same day. The original magistrate was replaced, and the file was handed to someone else to continue the investigation.
——
When the case finally came back to him, eleven months had passed in the Mortal Realm since it was filed.
Four hundred thirty-seven pages.
The last page said:
[Verdict: Not guilty]
Four hundred thirty-seven pages had made clear everything those first three pages skipped. He didn't have to prove he was innocent. The people accusing him had to produce evidence enough to convict.
This time, Shanjue approved it.
Another volume came with it: the review and correction record. The local level had still been privately ranking by how fast cases closed. The magistrate in charge had fallen back on old habits, and the review before him hadn't stopped it either.
That ranking was abolished. From then on, cases sent for review had to list the prosecution's evidence and the defendant's explanation in separate columns; any guilty recommendation with an empty evidence column had to be sent back at the previous review.
Shanjue kept this item on his spot-check list. People couldn't keep having to wait until a file reached his hands to have a chance of being let out.