Magical Law is a system of customary regulations on Equus. Its status in relation to systems of civil and criminal law, and the degree of its endorsement by sovereign states, has differed considerably over the thousands of years of its history.

History

Distinction between Magical and Civil law first emerged in the Unicorn Kingdom in the late fourth century BE. A royal stele attributes the title "Hereditary Guardian of All Legitimate Magic" to Fancy Crown, the crown prince of the Unicorn Kingdom, in 298 BE. The codification of customary magical law on which the current system is based are the Canons of Starswirl. The Canons date from the unification of the Unicorn Kingdom and Equestria, and are likely pseudonymous, Starswirl the Bearded having died in 21 BE - though their attribution to an apprentice, Clover the Clever, has supporters among historians of magic.

The development of Magical Law as an entity distinct from the mundane legal system is believed to have had a twofold impetus. First, it is generally considered that only mages had the requisite skills to detect and investigate many forms of magical criminality. Secondly, magical crime often crossed jurisdictional lines - the negative results of magical evildoing could be geographically far removed from the perpetrator. It was therefore acknowledged as desirable that magical jurisdictions should not be coterminous with mundane ones, nor beholden to the same set of political pressures. Magic's history as a self-regulating profession probably also played a part in the development of a separation between magical and mundane law. The great personal power of some magic users also made it a practical necessity necessary to depend on the legitimate magical community to enforce the law against one of their own who had turned to evil, and hence the magical community found itself in a good position to promote the separation and their legal autonomy in magical matters. The separation has rarely been entirely complete, however; for example, the court archmages of high feudal nobility were often the magico-legal superiors of the ensconced archmagi within that noble's territory.

Since the separation, Magical Law has often been without a unified legislative body, changing only slowly as precedential consensus adapted to changing times and mores. At other times, some body has been recognized as authoritative by most magistrates. For example, the Equestrian College of Archmagi, convened by Princess Celestia in the early Solar Age after the banishment of Nightmare Moon, reformed the Canons of Starswirl and added a second group of laws, the Celestial Canons. That body met several times over thirty years, but was not called on a regular basis. By the 37th century AE, a permanent legislative body of Magical Law, the Harmonic College of Archmagi, was widely recognized on Equus, though the recognition is not completely universal outside the system of Curacies. (I.e. there are some unaffiliated jurisdictions of lawful magic which are not part of any Curacy, and of these, some do not consider the Harmonic College of Archmagi's laws as binding upon them.)

Since antiquity, the original jurisdictions of magical law have been the archmagical sconces; Curacies are a Harmonic-Age innovation that replaced feudal system in which ducal and royal court archmagi were the superiors of ensconced archmagi in their patron's feudal dominion (more or less).

The current system of magical law upheld by the Curacies is the Second Harmonic Code of Magical Law, written by the Harmonic College of Archmagi and promulgated by the Curatrix, Princess Nova, in 3593.

Selected Terms and Concepts

Advice on magical law: Responsible magi can petition their archmage for his/her advice on magical law, which in practice has become a formal request for advisory judgement by the sconce's court. In essence, the petitioner asks how the archmage would rule about a hypothetical (or at least notionally hypothetical) situation. The court can choose to issue a binding opinion about the issue, or may decline to do so absent an actual controversy. If after receiving an opinion that an action was legal, one is subsequently charged with violations of magical law for the same, the advice received can be a defense. If successful, the defendant would not be punished (though they would still be obliged to cease and desist from the illegal activity.) Of course, the defendant's interpretation of the binding opinion would have to be reasonable, and no pertinent details of the activity could have been omitted when he or she previously sought advice on magical law.

Custodes: Law-enforcement personnel of a magico-legal jursidiction, supervised by quaestores. There are also specialist custodes, who have special training as technicians, and subsecreterii (scribes), who are lower-level clerical workers.

Lex instrumentum (non est finis): A principle in magical law, which is that law is a means to promote the common good, rather than an end in itself. The principle is invoked by a "greater good defense," a form of affirmative defense in which the defendant argues that his or her violation of magical law was necessary to achieve a great good, or (equivalently) to prevent a great evil. If accepted by the magistrate, this is a perfect defense, and the archmagi make annual reports to the Harmonic College of Archmagi on successful uses of this defense, that they may consider modifying magical law if a pattern of such judgements is seen in relation to particular laws. Advice on magical law is sometimes sought concerning a matter which is undoubtedly illegal, but which the petitioner nonetheless believes should be permissible under the principle of lex instrumentum, for particular and limited circumstances. (Some degree of urgency or highly unusual circumstances would normally be required, since if the matter is not exceptional or urgent, the matter would be more effectively addressed with a change in magical law.)

Officer: The officers of a magical sconce include the archmage, and the quaestores, magistrates, secreterii, and their deputies and assistants. Curacies have these officers as well (curial magistrates, etc) and are headed by a procurator, who represents the Curator. Most officers of the magico-legal system are identified by various forms and colors of Pointy Hat.

Responsible magi: Magic users in a sconce considered to be law-abiding and dependable. Official recognition as one of the responsible magi of a sconce gives an inhabitant the right to practice magic unsupervised there, e.g. to open a magic school or offer magical services for hire, but also obligated one to share in certain duties to the magical community, e.g. assisting the archmage in capturing criminals if needed.

Selected Crimes under Magical Law

Maleficarum: The magical crime of harming someone by means of magic without an acceptable reason (e.g. self defence, or participation in a 'just' war.) The Harmonic Code defines four levels based on the degree of volition of the perpetrator. Class I Maleficarum is perpetrated deliberately and transpires according to the intentions of the offender, Class II is perpetrated deliberately, but the degree of harm substantially exceeds what was intended by the offender; in Class III, the harm is done unintentionally, but with gross disregard for the possible effects of the offender's actions; Class IV is when the harm is done unintentionally, and at least some care - though it would have been deemed inadequate by a reasonable mage - was taken to prevent the harm. Acts investigated as possible maleficarum by the magico-legal system are often also illegal under mundane law, e.g. a murder by means of magic.

Necromancy: Many necromantic practices were banned by pre-Harmonic magical law; one of the more controversial changes of the 3593 code was the reformation of the necromancy ban. The new code removed customary bans on certain magical acts not involving the enslavement of unwilling spirits or the use of sophont corpses.

Dire Geases: Geases enforced with a ‘dire’ curse, e.g. a fatal one, are illegal in the Curacies, though not in most unafilliated jurisdictions of magical law (which, indeed, may use them to enforce the rulings of their courts.) Geases rendering the violator reversibly comatose are still considered dire geases and are illegal (because of the high risk of fatality if the victim is alone when triggered), but unlike fatal geases, the sconces sometimes grant ‘’lex instrumentum’’ exceptions to their prohibition in the case of extremely dangerous criminals or criminal suspects.

Retrodivination: Retrodivination is illegal in all known jurisdictions of magical law. In the Curacies, the power to give binding ‘’advice on magical law’’ concerning retrodivination is reserved to the Curator, and will be referred to her by an ensconced archmage or procurator who is consulted about it.