Adeptus Arbites - Lex Imperialis and the Book of Judgement: The Lex Imperialis, the code of Imperial Law, is written down in the Book of Judgement kept by the Adeptus Arbites. The Book of Judgement has been painstakingly collected, annotated and collated over millennia and embodies every decree ever passed by the Emperor Himself or the High Lords of Terra.In fact, the Book of Judgement has long-since grown beyond the confines of a single tome, no matter how large, and comprises countless records, books, and legal decrees.The most ancient articles are written on crumbling parchments, enscribed in unknown Human tongues by the nameless functionaries of a forgotten age. However, every day new volumes of parchment, data-records, and encoded holoscript are added to the Book of Judgement, and interred within the reinforced confines of the Hall of Judgement on Terra. Shelves of tomes rise hundreds of metres towards the vaulted ceilings above canyons of marble and iron.Over the ages, the Hall of Judgement has been expanded and extended many times, so that it is now an entire complex covering many acres, with kilometres of corridors, levels, and rooms. Scholars, scribes, and law lords pace the time-worn marble floors, while above their heads, on the narrow gantries and ladders that cover the shelf stacks like a spider's web, crawl legal assistants and low-ranking functionaries, searching through the detritus of judgement for solar weeks and months at a time to find just a single reference.Sectors ruled by the Imperium follow the precepts of the Lex Imperialis and the Book of Judgement. Over the centuries, of course, the interpretation of the Lex Imperialis by various sector lords and Judges became more and more bloated and unwieldy from numerous additions, amendments, exceptions, and clauses, the result of interpreting Imperial Law to the needs of specific locales.There exists a veritable army of thousands of clerks, litigants, and barristers toiling away on a sector's capital world just to interpret its ever evolving decrees and dicta.Indeed, the most astute Rogue Traders, trade houses, and merchant interests keep their own teams of legal scholars in their employ, both to keep them abreast of the current state of law in a given sector where they do business as well as to give them protection and guidance should they become embroiled in legal proceedings.Rogue Traders often send one of their cargo vessels to a sector's capital world once a solar decade to obtain the most up-to-date records of the Lex Imperialis as interpreted by that sector's law.Every Adeptus Arbites Judge, at some point in their career, attempts a pilgrimage to the Hall of Judgement on Terra, there to study the full intricacies of Imperial Law. Many spend long standard years there, for the most heinous, subtle, or far-reaching crimes often require a lengthy process of research to pass judgement.While the Dictates Imperialis are extensive, the huge volume of prior cases and sometimes contradictory rulings can make it difficult to determine the correct decision. In especially complex cases, it may take Terran centuries to reach an outcome -- a Judge may spend their entire life deliberating, scrutinising, and trying to fathom out the issues, only to pass their work on, unfinished, for others to continue.Millennia later, though the accused are long dead, a ruling is finally made and justice must be meted out upon the distant descendants and those obscurely associated with the original transgressor.