Courthouse (CTP2)

is a building in Call to Power II.
==Gameplay==
Courthouses provide public access to due process of law, allowing citizens to file grievances and seek justice. The state uses the courts not only enforce the law but to challenge it. All of this equates to a judicial system that defines the limits of criminal activity but gives victims an avenue for retribution and recourse.
== Great Library entry ==
The evolution of the Roman legal system was indicative of how fledgling nations developed their legal systems to accommodate ever increasing levels of complexity in laws and codes. The earliest attempts to establish Roman law was attempted with the Twelve Tables in 451-450 BC. They made available the rules and procedures for many civil, public, criminal and sacred laws, the minutiae of which were previously controlled and executed by a small group of pontiffs (pontifices), members of the patrician ruling class. Posted in the Roman Forum, it became a public property and, therefore, appealable by any Roman citizen.
Roman law, and the Roman courts, primarily concerned themselves with matters of property and possessions (right over land and slaves), obligations (contracts and loans), succession (inheritance and family law) and persons (citizenship, family and slaves). However, when Rome was first founded and insignificant to much of the Mediterranean world, laws only applied to Roman citizens. A foreigner (perigrinus) had no rights whatsoever within Roman land, unless his state had entered into a formal agreement with Rome. By the middle of the 3rd century BC, Rome began to grow in power. To extend legal protections to the growing number of peregrini, the Roman Empire developed the jus gentium ("law of the nations") to govern activity between cives (citizens) and peregrini.
The rise of the role of courts in lawmaking and legal enforcement grew as the Roman legal system evolved. The first stage of development, the legis actiones, took place during the Twelve Tables period from 5th century BC to the last 2nd century BC. Legal procedure was divided into several steps. Initially, the plaintiffs approached defendants in public places and requested they come to court. Those who refused could be taken by force. The trial consisted of a preliminary hearing, held before a magistrate, who determined whether there was a grievance and, if so, what it was. After the issues were brought to light, both parties would agree on a iudex (judge), a prominent citizen who was not of a legal profession. Proceedings before a iudex were less formal: advocates spoke, presented evidence and called witnesses. Although the iudex made a decision, he had no power to execute it. If found in the wrong, the defendant was given a specific period in which to redress the grievance. Failure to comply could result in the defendant being brought before the magistrate by force. His property could be seized, or he could be made a slave to the plaintiff to work off the debt or claim.
In the later Republic period, as cases became more complex, the issues presented to the iudex had to be written down. This lead to the formulary system, in which the procedure of defendants brought to court remained, but with a more powerful role for the magistrate in determining whether a case went to the iudex. After the classical period ended in the late 3rd century AD, the cognitio extraordinaria system saw a further increase of power placed in the hands of magistrates and the courts. Courts began issuing summons, trial rulings were documented and magistrates eventually supplanted iudices in the role of judge. After Christianity became the state religion of Rome, the ecclesiastical courts, previously established by Christians who had refused to have recourse to pagan courts, became a part of the Roman legal system. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, the ecclesiastical courts survived and assumed jurisdiction over secular affairs.