 The proceedings of Altairian trial defy which tenet of the modern western legal system?
Interplanetary ruling. I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire legal system built around it." They have only the haziest idea what truth represents, and they've shrugged off the idea as impossible and useless." Encroachment on private property is legal grounds for murder on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same chunk of land at the same time, all armed with title-deeds."
 a defendant is innocent until proven guilty
 a defendant is innocent until proven guilty  a defendant has a right to due process  no warrant shall be issued without just cause  no one shall be subject to self-incrimination