LEMAN™: Enforceable Decision Authority The Constitutional Foundation of Legitimate Action in Intelligent Systems

This book introduces enforceable decision authority as a system-level property evaluated at execution time. Its contribution is architectural and constitutional rather than behavioral, ethical, or procedural. While informed by prior work in law, systems engineering, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and governance, no existing framework defines or enforces authority at the point of execution as a deterministic system constraint. Existing approaches address behavior, values, safety, oversight, or accountability, but leave execution pathways technically open. LEMAN™ establishes execution-time authority through a pre-execution gate and explicit refusal semantics, rendering unauthorized action mechanically impossible. Authority is treated as binary, verifiable, and independent of decision quality, confidence, or intent. This work constitutes the first book-length formalization of enforceable decision authority as a foundational system property. It positions legitimacy—not intelligence or optimization—as the primary constraint on action in intelligent systems.