Cull Commission
A Cull Commission is an informal body organised at the bailiwick level in the Benacian Union and tasked with processing those subjects who, whether by obstinacy or incapacity, fail to contribute to the commonweal. A cull commission will normally be convened on an annual or quarterly basis by the censor, an official appointed to the bailiwick by the Benacian Censorate to maintain the registers of subjects and guild members, their service, their year cohorts, and their eligibility for further duties. The censor is joined in his deliberations by representatives of the bailiff, the official appointed by the Governor of the Governorate with jurisdiction in order to ensure that the bailiwick meets its stipulated manpower and tribute payment quotas, and the president of the municipal corporation, who represents the guilds present in the city. Together these three individuals, usually attended by their own secretaries and a notary in the employ of the bailiwick, will review the register of adult subjects in order to identify three categories of miscreant:
- Subjects who have been fined, lashed or branded for a petty infraction of local bylaws;
- Guildsmen who have failed to pay their dues, either to the guild or to the municipal corporation;
- Bondsmen of the municipal corporation who have reported by their overseer for neglect of their duties and obligations.
Where a subject's name is recorded by the cull commission at three successive meetings the name of that individual is entered onto a new list which the notary is then charged to convey to the halls of the magister-carnifex resident in the bailiwick. Upon receipt of the list the magister-carnifex is humbly petitioned to remove the named individuals from the community of the bailiwick. This removal, usually conducted in the form of a dawn raid upon the residence of the individual, will normally take the form of deportation to the nearest encampment of the Benacian Labour Reserve. The exiled subject will be branded and microchipped so as to prevent their return to the bailiwick.
Some bailiwicks have however been known to retain individuals arrested on the request of the cull commission in order to have a full slate of executions during the Festival of the Undaunted Atos or the commemorations of the Oustfest Massacre.
