The children's court at Dom Sierot adjudicated real disputes with real emotional stakes: a child accused of stealing, a staff member accused of unfairness, a group of children accused of bullying. A rotating panel of child-judges heard testimony, examined evidence, deliberated, and rendered verdicts. The code of law they applied — drafted and refined by the children themselves over years — ran to over one thousand articles, most extraordinarily lenient by design. Most offenses were "forgiven" on first or second occurrence, with escalating consequences only for repeated patterns. The leniency was deliberate. Korczak wanted the court to develop the children's capacity for judgment, not their capacity for punishment. Korczak himself could be — and was — brought before the court, and accepted its verdicts against him. The court thus embodied the most radical proposition of his educational framework: that children are capable of exercising moral authority over adults, and that the exercise itself