The Three Cases, Part II

As for the third case, Dominic's deprivation of civil rights case, it lasted nearly two years and directly led to the Arbiter Court's exit from the stage of history.

Dominic and his partner, Sera, were both immigrants from the Wasteland. They met and fell in love after entering Nia Province, soon marrying and having children. After the marriage, Sera began running a spice business with her sharp mind and achieved great success. To ensure their children received better care, Dominic decided to give up his lower-paying job and devote more of his energy to raising their three children.

However, just as the two were about to obtain formal District 3 citizenship, Dominic's application was rejected. Worse still, he was informed that because he had failed to fully fulfill his civic obligations over the past five years, his application to relocate to the Habitable Zone had been permanently denied, and from that day onward he would lose all civil rights within the Habitable Zone. He would have two chances to appeal. If both appeals failed, he would have to leave District 3 immediately and return to his place of origin. If he still wished to live in the Habitable Zone afterward, he would need to begin the entire process from scratch.

Still reeling from the shock, Dominic quickly filed his first appeal. Only then did he learn what his "unfulfilled civic obligation" actually was—every male citizen entering the Habitable Zone was required to attend a monthly community meeting. The meetings covered a wide range of topics: sometimes monthly welfare within the community was discussed, sometimes some residents were assigned to serve as jurors in community court, and more often they involved various forms of training, from what documents to bring and what procedures to follow when applying for a bank card,