Version 2.1
How Common!
[Issue]A middle-class couple was charged with theft recently after they were found to have improved their garden using turf taken from one of the lawns in @@CAPITAL@@ Common, the city's largest park. They are claiming that their actions were legal because as householders dwelling within three furlongs of the Common, and having a hearth but not also "at least a quarter-acre of woodlot", they enjoy a customary right of 'Turbary' that entitles them to take up to two dozen loads of turves from it per year.
[Validity]Rich/Poor Income ratio enough to justify the existence of a ‘middle class’; nation must have law-courts; does any issue/option ban the existence of couples?
[Option]"It's ridiculous!" barks Mr Green, the city’s Head of Parks, Playing Fields, and Floral Arrangements, growing agitated. "That old right was established to give poor folk an extra source of winter fuel, not so that the well-off could stock their gardens at my — the city's, I mean — expense. If you let this couple get away with it then half their neighbours will probably follow suit, leaving the parks stripped, and what customary rights will people try claiming there next? Pulling down trees for timber? Taking the ornamental fish from the Long Pond? This rot needs to be nipped in the bud, so you should pass a law abolishing any ancient rights that aren't also guaranteed under proper modern legislation."
[Validity]unrestricted
[Effect]the legal system is in turmoil while lawyers sort out what rights people still have
[Option]"Surely you wouldn't destroy age-old traditions just like that?" murmurs Professor White, the scholar whom you'd called in to confirm whether that couple's claim was valid. "They were, after all, the roots from which our modern system of rights grew. Why not just legislate a reasonable reinterpretation to fit current circumstances — allowing the genuinely poor to take material for fuel from areas that would be set aside for that purpose for example, and clarifying that the right to take fish from commons' waters applies only to native types rather than to introduced decorative ones as well — and give Mr Green's staff the right to enforce those rules?"
[Validity]unrestricted
[Effect]only lawyers can gain entry to public parks
[Option]"No, that's not enough!" exclaims your secretary @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@ Knight, who's a bit of a history buff. "Gadzooks! Customary rights like those are a part of our glorious cultural heritage, and should be not just tolerated but actively promoted!"
[Validity]unrestricted
[Effect]official posters remind people of their rights to eat elderberries and to wear armour at public meetings
[Option] "That old 'Right of Turbary' applies not only to turf but to peat, as well, doesn't it?" enquires @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Natural Resources. "This gives me an idea. Peat's a much better fuel than turf, and there's LOTS of it up in the northern moors, so if you pass a law declaring the State to have this Right there, regardless of who actually owns the land itself, then we could quarry it for use in those new power stations we need instead of having to import more oil…″
[Validity]nation does not use nuclear power (and has at least a moderate level of Primitiveness?)
[Effect]the hills are alive with the sound of excavators
Changes from previous draft: both the start of the fourth option, and its effect line, have been modified. (My thanks to Far Tholk.)
Changes from previous draft: Effect line for second option altered; fourth option added.
Changes from second draft: exclamation mark added to title; 'nation must have law-courts' added to validity (because otherwise that couple probably couldn't have been charged); quotation marks (and apostrophes) fixed; description mentions "a customary right" rather than "a traditional right"; shorter Effect line for option #2; a few extra words in option #3; altered Effect line for option #3.
Changes from first draft: one typo fixed, one minor change to punctuation, different Effect lines for options #2 & #3.
Notes
Yes, a right of ‘Turbary’ did apply at some Commons in RL (at least in England), allowing the removal of turf for (mainly used for fuel, sometimes also as a roofing material) and probably also covering the removal of peat (for use as fuel) if that was present there.
I’ve called the speaker in the second option Professor White because using another colour seemed appropriate after the first issue’s Green, and something else recently reminded me of T.H. White’s writings, but obviously that detail could be changed without otherwise affecting the issue: ‘Professor Plum’, for example (maintaining the botanical theme), or just ‘Professor @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@’…