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The Court of Prestations is a solemn place, and Judge Thanister in particular is known for his meticulous impartiality, but even he couldn’t help rolling his eyes when PeopleFirst’s lawyers presented their 65th petition seeking repeal of Jamper’s Law.

‘Thanister can grimace all he likes,’ said PeopleFirst’s Executive Director Crosten Prise Metashter afterwards.  ‘Jamper’s Law is an invidious piece of legislation.  It’s so long that ordinary people can’t reasonably be expected to read it all, and even lawyers struggle to understand just about every one of its more than a thousand sections.  In the past decade it’s been responsible for over twelve thousand appeals to Pleading Courts, and of those almost two thousand were appealed to the Court of Prestations.  Jamper’s Law serves two functions:  it puts innocent people in jail, and it makes money for lawyers.’

Government spokesman Ormstak Bemfrist was quick to condemn PeopleFirst’s latest court action.  ‘Jamper’s Law may be old, but it’s effective.  Last year five thousand criminals were jailed, and over three trillion bars of revenue was recovered, under Jamper’s Law.  It’s an effective instrument of government, and the government fully expects the Court of Prestations to refuse this petition, just as they refused the previous sixty four.

QRIS legal correspondent Emfra Coltin comments:

Jamper’s Law has been controversial ever since it was enacted over four hundred years ago.  Largely the work of the man for whom it was named, a senior government draftsman called Umble Jamper, it was intended to replace all other legislation at the time, and to make the need for future lawmaking redundant.  It was enthusiastically enacted into law by 18th Chancellor Frismal Tix, shortly before he was diagnosed with terminal brain-flutter.  His successor swiftly made the expected moves to revoke Jamper’s Law, but that process mysteriously stalled, and whereas it is officially still in progress, the law remained on the statute books and gradually began to be used more and more as the government realised how useful it was.  Jamper’s Law covers just about every area of human activity, in terms so ambiguous that it can be used to prosecute just about any action the government chooses.  Its most infamous provision, the notorious Section 1299, reads ‘Inappropriateness shall be dealt with appropriately,’ and has been put to a variety of purposes, ranging from the expulsion from office of a government minister found to have dismembered and frozen several members of his staff, to the longstanding ban on pupils bringing soft toys to school.  PeopleFirst have regularly challenged Jamper’s Law as being unconstitutional, but their petitions have always failed to overcome the initial hurdle presented by the fact that Qualtern has no constitution.

Jamper’s Law challenged again