Note: couldn't think of a better topic name >.< Anyway, I'm rewarching the prequels right now and some issues concerning the law rise with me. For one, the Jedi keep making decisions that somehow outrank the official police forces on different planets (mostly Republic planets, but not necessarily), and sometimes, even of the planetary, or local rulers. For another, namely in AotC we see how Anakin highjacks an airspeder, how they crash the assassin's speeder in the middle of a street, how they even cut the assassin's hand in the club, but after Anakin says 'we are Jedi', everyone calms down; heck, the assassin dies during interrogation, but they just go about their business, no police investigations or anything! Throughout the films we see how Yoda and Windu are unsatisfied with how the Senate Palpatine keeps meddling in their affairs and arguing with their decisions - this can be understood for the internal Jedi affairs, but not in general - and at that point they didn't yet know he was a Sith Lord, just that he was (supposedly?) difficult to read. The Jedi have enough authority to perform arrests, to interrogate, to hold in captivity, and to carry a highly dangerous weapon, but none of this is something a religious figure should have, right? (unles you're a catholic in medieval Europe) Still, unlike the inquisitions, they don't performs acts of mass terror (thanks for that at least). There are many other examples in the EU, at least in the old one, where the Jedi outrank the political and legal authorities. I just can't understand how and why a monastic religious organization in a liberal democracy gets to have so much legal and even political authority, because they're clearly above your average 'citizen's arrest' and 'lobby group' kind of crowd.