Two invisible magi walk into a tavern. They bump into each other.
Are they both charged with scrying on the other? Or do the charges wash out.
I know it's silly but then the case law would be a precedent
First, someone has to actually accuse one of the magi of Scrying. If no one presses the charge, there's no case.
Let's assume some Tytalus accuses one or both magi of Scrying, just because.
Then, the Praeco refuses to schedule the case at Tribunal, figuring it is a trivial distraction. If the two magi don't settle privately, it remains unresolved until the case is heard or the magi pass.
IMS: Neither of them can be shown to have known the other was there. In fact, as they bumped into each other, it's quite likely they didn't.
So, they weren't scrying on each other. They were scrying on the mundane inhabitants of the tavern, which is perfectly legal.
And as Doctorcomics points out, it's unlikely to even get a hearing.
It's a lot like real law.
Most infractions of the law, especially if those infractions are against a person who is not 'the people', never even get close to a court case. Settling out of court, which may be as much as a simple 'oops, sorry!' is often sufficient.
For a crime to make it before a judiciary panel it needs to have been unable to be resolved up to that point or be at a point where judiciary input is required. Many minor crimes (like the invisible magi situation) will never make it that far.
And don't forgert to hang the witnesses. They were obviously scrying, too.
It's not scrying for the other if one was involved in criminal activies because of forfeit immunity.
Since both are scrying on each other, they are both forfeit immunity. Therefore there is not scrying. Since there is no scrying, they are not involved in forfeit immunity. Therefore, they are fully protected by the code, this is scrying.
(Restart.)
I think it all comes down to intent. Since neither of them was aware if the other the real question is did either of them have an expectation of their being other magi to spy upon? Casting invisibility and happening to have other magi around is not illegal, it is the use of invisibility to spy on them.
That totally depends on your tribunal (and your saga).
Some tribunals claim that being inthe Heartbeast (for a Bjornaer magus) is use of magic and is thus scrying.
In our saga, we have sometime ruled that if you happen to have any spell giving you the possibility to be unnoticed (shapeshifting, flying, muto imaginem/corpus/other kind, supernatural abilities, familiar present with permanent mentem connection to magus) by a magus doing something legal, you are in fact scrying. Intention do not matter. Only the fact committed matters.
That's why my Guernicus character has 5 in perception, 5+2 in awareness, 5 in stealth, folk ken and profession: locksmith. I want to be mundaly able to follow sodales when I'm investigating them. I do not want to see my limited investigating immunity be put into question by a tribunal.
On the other hand, in our saga, some tribunals just decide that it isn't scrying to be invisible in the lab of another magus, because it suits them that it isn't: they do it all the time!
I don't think either of the magi have anything they can press against each other without being convicted of the same themselves ... depending on how they fit into the politics of the Tribunal.
Intent doesn't likely much matter as to "whether or not" a high crime took place. Even a forcelessly-cast Intellego spell which happens to catch a Redcap by accident is still scrying upon a magus - it's simply unlikely to lead to any damages at Tribunal if nothing about other magi's affairs are discovered. (Serf's parma - I''m pretty sure this is in one of the books, suspecting in the Guernicus chapter of HoH:TL.)
Even if this did come up at a Tribunal, I'm fairly sure that it wouldn't set too much of a precedent. There's simply too many little details that would differ from case to case.
Keep in mind as well that these are not modern times, and lawyers do not even exist in some tribunals, certainly not like today's lawyers. Technicallities of the law are likely to give way to common sense.
While I don't trust the common sense of nearly any person (least of all people who can perform near-miracles), I would hope that the Presiding Quaesitor during the pre-Tribunal phase would cast Walk Into This (target feels a smack across his face, PeCo: cause a target pain but no damage) on both magi involved for such a ludicrous waste of his time.
Well, a combination of common sense and "What can I profit from this?", probably if it went to tribunal both magi would be fined an amount of vis to be paid to the tribunal rather than the putative victim, who is also guilty.
If brought to Tribunal I could see both magi losing some prestige, but depending on the politics and reputation of either, one might get off scot free while the other gets harshly punished. The process of finding guilt is a democratic one. A good phrase to sum that up: A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
The main issue would be if it came to Tribunal at all, I'd see both magi saying: "OK then...well...good day!" and leaving well enough alone right after the inicdent. If a Quaesitor or other busybody or rule-stickler witnessed it, then maybe it could be brought to Tribunal by that party. But once in Tribunal I would think the assembled magi could be quite peeved at this petty and ridiculous issue and make an example of both. We are talking about power hungry, mal-adjusted, social misfits.
There is also a question of context. If Magus 1 was going down to the bar to spy on the grogs, and lives in the covenant, and is known by other magi to do this routinely while the second is a visitor who is walking around invisibly to see what is where without interference, then clearly it is the second mage who will be punished.
I'm not sure that this is true. The whole point of Tribunals is that they are regional legal codes; there must be something very much like a lawyer involved. The mundane legal system is quite developed and has lawyers (and has since at least Roman times; Julius Caesar was a lawyer). There is no reason for magi to be less sophisticated in this respect than the mundanes.
As for the original question, one of the magi has to accuse the other of scrying for it to be a case. Then that accusation would be judged on its merits, and if not settled before Tribunal would be voted on. If there is a mirroring accusation of scrying, then the Tribunal may or may not consider that to be either a mitigating or aggravating factor --- depends on the Tribunal/saga/context.
I don't think that a third party that somehow knows about the incident could successfully accuse one or both of the magi of scrying. As the magi in question could both just deny that it was scrying --- if they both deny they were scryed on, then there is no case.
Just because something existed in Roman times does not mean it would continue to exist in the middle ages. However I was not saying there were no lawyers, simply that they are not like lawyers today. The modern adversarial legal system is very different from the ancient systems. Additionally I note that at press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/boo ... 20943.html in the book synopsis it indicates "In the aftermath of sixth-century barbarian invasions, the legal profession that had grown and flourished during the Roman Empire vanished. Nonetheless, professional lawyers suddenly reappeared in Western Europe seven hundred years later during the 1230s when church councils and public authorities began to impose a body of ethical obligations on those who practiced law" so no, lawyers as we have them today did not exist until after 1230, and even then would have been far less detail oriented and sophisticated in their methodology.
We are talking about several centuries before the birth of the scientific method, so concepts of proof were far different to begin with...
from yesnet.yk.ca/schools/project ... w/law.html
"Manor Courts
•many of the disputes in the manor courts had to do with farming and property(using too much manure, ploughing another person's land)
•manor courts dealt with charges of assault, petty theft, public drunkenness and other small crimes
•this court would even allow serfs to sue if they felt it was unfair
•manor courts were like a village meeting, most of the villagers would attend
•witnesses were very important
•heavy fines were enforced for lying in the court
•villagers decided who won the case
•representatives of the lord, called stewards, acted as judges deciding the sentence of the court (which was uaually a fine)
"
when a group of uneducated locals are deciding your sentence by popular vote, legal arguments are not likely to hinge on technicalities.
That would imply that lawyers showed up before the 1230's. You don't impose regulations for something non-existent.
The Scientific Method isn't used in the courtroom for proof today. Its totally incompatible with the legal concept of proof. Some evidence is supposed to be supported by it, but even that's iffy since judges often don't understand it.
Again, lawyers as we know them today is the point. And while the scientific method is not directly correlated to courtroom proof or evidence it certainly informs the general cognitive process by which modern people, including lawyers and juries, arrive at conclusions. Attention to minutia of the legal code was less of an issue in the 1200s than today, and until 1230 the legal profession was unorganized and had no kind of professional code. Talking about lawyers today verses then is like talking about modern architects compared to the construction which occurred then with little if any formal planning, and indicating that the development of building codes means they had professional architects. You can stretch the definition in that direction but it really isn't the same thing.