"You familiar with the Confucian system of justice, Bud?" said Judge 
Fang. Bud's head was beginning to get dizzy from snapping back and forth like a 
spectator at a tennis match. "I'm guessing no. Okay, even though the Chinese 
Coastal Republic is no longer strictly or even vaguely Confucian, we still run 
our judicial system that way—we've had it for a few thousand years, and 
we think it's not half bad. The general idea is that as judge, I actually 
perform several roles at once: detective, judge, jury, and if need be, 
executioner."