Adeptus Arbites - Imperial Law and the Adeptus Arbites: To aid their investigations, most Arbites Precinct Fortresses boast a cogitator stack containing a massively abridged version of just a portion of those judgements and precedents of the Lex Imperialis that fall commonly into the Arbitrators' local purview. These rulings by segmentae Judges, High Marshals and even the Lords Marshal themselves, are designed to expedite the work of an individual Arbitrator.The Imperium of Man is ultimately a theocracy, and although the Arbites wield and police temporal authority, religious concepts make up the bedrock of Imperial Law. The Lex Imperialis holds that the Emperor rightfully expects service and obedience from every Human being in the galaxy, and that within the Imperium that expectation is made manifest through the scripture of His laws.To break the Lex Imperialis is not only to disobey a law of the government, it is to violate the immaculate and divine moral order those laws set out. This violation of a divine order -- this sin -- is present in every crime the Arbites investigate, and once this reality is understood the need for harsh methods and stern penalties becomes clear. For the Arbites, there is no such thing as a petty crime.This is also why the heresy of abstractionism -- the attempt by some Arbitrators to go beyond the bounds of the letter of the law in the search for justice -- is so reviled by right-thinking Arbites. It places the flawed and hubristic whims of an individual above the clean, majestic structures of the Emperor's laws as made manifest through the due scripture of His servants. The letter of the law is immaculate -- to claim access to the spirit of the law is to claim equality with the Emperor, a crime and a blasphemy which no Arbitor should countenance.There are a number of broad crimes the Arbites constantly find themselves fighting. There are crimes of destabilisation, committed on scales taking in whole planetary populations. These are the waves of anarchy that can break across a world from disobedient anger at adepta rule, or the criminal loss of discipline in the face of disaster or famine.It can be panic at imminent or actual invasion, or a hive-, continent-, or planetwide religious fervour that skews the perspective of the masses and sees them in flagellant processions or hysterical mass confessions rather than keeping the wheels of the Imperium turning.Where a planetary governor cannot restrain their citizens the Arbites must take the lead and set the example, breaking rioters, crushing panics, and showing the mob the meaning of Imperial loyalty and discipline. Invariably, when the Arbites must take such action, the governor will be called to account for his or her loss of control, and few survive their verdict.It is said the Lex Imperialis allows that crimes of destabilisation may arise from raw passions ineffectively contained. Crimes of sedition have no such mitigation -- they result from the cold and careful intention to strike at the perfect machinery of Imperial rule.Blasphemy, heresy, the spreading of freethinking propaganda, and the deliberate and knowing defiance of Arbites law are all crimes of sedition, as are physical and moral assaults on the instruments of Imperial rule. A mind capable of deliberate sedition could be capable of anything, and the punishments for it are ruthless and terrifying to contemplate.To enforce every mandate within the Lex Imperialis is a nearly impossible task. These codices of law are so enormous and erudite that few individuals can claim to know all of their secrets or loopholes. Even the Judges of the Arbites must regularly confer with archive-savants and librarium cogitation engines in order to make their rulings.Working for the local planetary Enforcers or powerful nobles during the all-too-rare trials, the legal experts make up a group of rare legal minds. These steadfast scholars spend solar decades poring over the Lex Imperialis, learning its every nuance and interpretation.