COURSE ON LAWS, COURTS and JUDGES
Details of the following nineteen obligations and seven prohibitions, that are included in this commandment and its offshoots, are explained in this section and in Sheva Mitzvot HaShem, Vol. 3 (Dinim):
1. For a Gentile society to establish laws and ordinances.
2: For a Gentile society to establish courts in which judges will adjudicate regarding issues and transgressions that involve the Seven Commandments
3. For judges to adjudicate in court cases regarding all other matters that pertain to maintaining a stable society.
4. ‘To compel and strive to guide Gentiles to accept and fulfill the details of their Seven Commandments and behave in a good and upright way. This includes the obligation to educate others in good and proper ways of life.
3. Not to cause someone to err or deviate from proper ways of living, nor cause someone to have an obstacle in his life, nor lead someone to transgress one of the Torah’s laws that he is obligated to observe.
6. To involve oneself in charity and acts of kindness for the poor and needy.
7. To work on self-improvement, and to educate and guide oneself in proper character traits, attitudes and ideals. This includes fulfillment of all logical obligations, such as the obligation for Gentiles to honor their parents.
8. To ensure that the people are being correctly and fairly judged within the courts, which includes appointing only judges and police officers who are qualified and fitting for their positions.
9. For empowered Noahide courts to judge matters of the Seven Commandments according to the relevant Torah laws; other cases that involve laws which are agreed upon by the society should be judged according to the understanding of the judges, within the proper guidelines.
10. To distinguish between deliberate, inadvertent, or coerced transgressors, and to apply the correct standards for judging those different types of cases.
11. To judge righteously and without perversion of justice. 12. Not to accept a bribe that touches upon the judgment of a court case.
13, To ensure that the judges and witnesses are men in capital cases that involve transgression of any of the Seven Commandments.
14. That a qualified person is to judge or be a witness in a case involving transgression of one of the Seven Commandments, even he is a Close relative of a person who is involved in the case.
15. For a judge not to remove himself from judging due to worry or fear about reprisals that might be made against him.
16. To judge cases that involve transgression of one of the Seven Commandments through valid witnesses.
17. In the opinion of Maimonides: for a valid witness to come forward to a court to give testimony that he knows about a case that involves transgression of one of the Seven Commandments.
18. Not to give false testimony to a court of law.
19. To investigate and determine whether the testimony given to a court of law is true or not.
20. Not to receive invalid testimony in a court of law, in courts cases that involve transgression of one of Seven Commandments.
21. Not to hire a false witness to give false testimony to a court of law. 22. To correctly establish the laws of inheritance for Gentiles.
23. If an adult Gentile transgressed one of the specific Seven Commandments and was convicted for this by a Noahide Court (i.e., a court that judged him in accordance with the Torah laws for Gentiles, and was authorized to do so by the majority of the society), the court is obligated to sentence him to death and carry out the execution (if that is the punishment that is required in the law), rather than accepting a ransom to spare his life. By extension, a court system is to carry out the punishment prescribed by the law of the land for one who has been properly convicted of committing a crime.
24. To establish laws and rules for judging in courts about matters beyond the Seven Commandments that need to be regulated for the society, such as establishing beneficial laws for commerce, according to the understanding of the lawmakers.
25. To appoint police officers to enforce a court’s rulings, and by extension, to establish proper laws and rules of government that are agreed upon by the majority of the people, by which “the law of the land is the law”.
26. For a Gentile court not to convict or execute someone who prophesies falsely in the name of God, but rather to hand such a false prophet over to be judged by the Supreme Sanhedrin of the Jews, if it is functioning.
Shalom to everyone