Governing Judges

The Governing Judges were, collectively, the supreme executive and judiciary of the Exoi Kritocracy.

The Governing Judges were appointed by the Exoi God-King with the consultation of the existing Governing Judges, though the God-King's judgment was final. To be qualified, potentials had to have served as lesser judges for many years and possess senior training and academic degrees. Though not a formal law, it was a de facto requirement that a Governing Judge be an Exoi himself; no aliens were ever made Governing Judges.

One Governing Judges was appointed for each of the Kritocracy's worlds. In the beginning of the Kritocracy, a single Governing Judge of Toriafas acted as a governing partner to the God-King; at the height of the Kritocracy, 896 Governing Judges ruled the empire. The Governing Judges served for life; after the Kritocracy-Ascendancy War, they determined that Governing Judges for worlds which had been lost were obligated to step down from their offices. Governing Judges were not required to be from the worlds they represented, and a common critique of many of them was that they had never even set foot on the worlds they represented.

Governing Judges had authority over all governmental appointments aside from other Governing Judges, as well as command-in-chief of the military and control over all executive agencies. The Judges themselves served as a sort of cabinet-by-committee, volunteering for committees which interested them, such as the Expansion Committee (responsible for war and later redubbed the Military Committee), the Finance Committee, and the Commerce Committee. All the Judges collectively served as the Jurisprudential Committee, which rendered scholarly opinions and decisions on Kritocracy-wide matters of law.

Many Governing Judges devoted what free time they had to scholarly writing.

When the Kritocracy submitted to the Golden Empire in 155 ABY, all nineteen remaining Governing Judges formally resigned their offices.

Appearances

 * The Final Judgment