There are different courts in Syana which see different types of trial depending on the severity of the crime. Judges who oversee these courts are assigend to cases in their local area, meaning they may sit in various courts depending on the severity of the case they are assigned to.
This severity is classified under the "route system", where there are 5 o'sisa (routes) that a crime can fall into, increasing in severity as the number increases.
These courts see trials for crimes that fall under routes 1 and 2 (and sometimes 3 if the defendant pleads guilty before the trial process commences). There is often one of these courts in every place that is a small town or larger, and the trials held here are done so under a single judge. They are named "Open Courts" due to the fact that members of the public are able to watch the trials held here at any time, acting as a pseudo-jury, however they can only observe and do not impact or take part in the trial in any way.
Open Court trials are often very short (under an hour) and due to the simple and straight-forward nature of route 1 and 2 crimes, the trial process often consists simply of a judge reading out the details of what the defendant did and sentencing them accordingly. The maximum sentence that can be given in an Open Court is 18 months in prison, or 24 months of community service.
Great Courts are the primary court used in the Syan legal system and deal with crimes in routes 3 and 4. There are at least one (sometimes more) in every city and many town-clusters will have a regional Great Court as well. Trials in a Great Court are held under the authority of a judge as well as two other o'naasi-'l-akaado di-'sala (deputy judges), and the final verdict is given by a jury of either 10 or 15 people (for route 3 and 4 crimes respectively).
Trials held in Great Courts can last from several days to several weeks, depending on the complexity of the case. There are no limites to the maximum sentence able to be given by the judge and deputy judges in a Great Court and all crimes under routes 1 to 4, also known as o'monaaki di-o'akaado ("common" crimes), are processed between the Great and Open courts.
When a decision is made by a judge in the Open Courts or Great Courts, this decision can be appealled to a Second Opinion Court, where a panel of 5 judges will review whether the decision made in the initial trial was correct (or whether the trial had followed correct procedure / was lawful).
For most cases, the decision made in a Second Opinion Court is final and absolute. The only time this decision can be changed is if there is substantial new evidence that would have greatly impacted the outcome of either the initial or appeal trial, in which case the trial process would start again from either an Open or Great Court.
The Royal Court is the highest-level court in Syana, and is situated at the bia-laas bia-loma di-'namaa (Great Hall of Justice) in the city of Kaa-daal. This court deals with trials held for route 5 crimes, which are also known as biaa o'monaaki ("big" crimes). These are trials over matters which concern the country of Syana itself, such as decisions made by high-ranking politicians or human rights violations that affect a large percentage of the public.
Trials held in The Royal Court are held under the jurisdiction of three judges, as well as a jury of 15 deputy judges. These trials can often last months and have heavy media coverage, usually being a major moment in the news of that year. On average there are around 2 or 3 trials held in The Royal Court every year, however most of them are holding large companies accountable for not wholly following Syana's 1989 human rights convention. For this reason, whilst prison setencing from this court is possible, most sentences given in The Royal Court are injuctions against the activities of a person/company as well as possibly orders to financially compensate people affected by the crime.