military law

military law
the body of laws relating to the government of the armed forces; rules and regulations for the conduct of military personnel.
[1730-40]

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Law prescribed by statute for governing the armed forces and their civilian employees.

It in no way relieves military personnel of their obligations to their country's civil code or to the codes of international law. Mutiny, insubordination, desertion, misconduct, and other offenses injurious to military discipline constitute violations of military law; offenders may be subject to court-martial. Lesser offenses may be penalized summarily by a commanding officer (e.g., through the withdrawal of privileges or the cancellation of liberty).

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Introduction

      the body of law concerned with the maintenance of discipline in the armed forces.

      Every state requires a code of laws and regulations for the raising, maintenance, and administration of its armed forces, all of which may be considered the field of military law. The term, however, is generally confined to disciplinary military law as defined above, i.e., that part of the code that aims at and sanctions the maintenance of discipline in the armed forces. In the past this was also known by the name of martial law, a term that now has the meaning of military enforcement of order upon a civil population either in occupied territory or in time of disorder.

      Members of armed forces do not cease under modern conditions to have duties as citizens and as human beings. All systems of military law thus must aim to ensure that the soldier is in no way enabled to escape the obligations of his country's ordinary law or of international law as recognized in various conventions.

Historical development
      The object of the disciplinary code is to ensure that the will of the commander is put into effect. Military law therefore traces its origins to the prerogative power of rulers. In Rome, just as a sector of civil law developed from the imperium of the magistrates, so did military law derive from the imperium of those same magistrates in their capacity as commanders of the military forces. The Roman historian Tacitus indicates that military justice in the 1st century AD was somewhat rough-and-ready and heavy-handed and varied much with the individual commander. But it became more formalized 400 years later in the Digest and Codex of the emperor Justinian. With the rise of the kingdoms of the Middle Ages, the maintenance of discipline was enforced by ordinances or articles of war issued by the sovereign or by a commander authorized by him at the beginning of each campaign. The earliest now extant are those of the English (England) king Richard I in a charter of 1189 for the government of those going to the Holy Land.

      With mercenary armies drawn from many nations in the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, each national contingent tended to apply the articles of the supreme commander according to its own rules of procedure. The articles of war of Maurice of Nassau, prince of Orange, and Gustav II Adolf had a considerable influence on the national commanders who served under them, when they came to command elsewhere. In the English Civil Wars, the ordinances of the royalist and the parliamentary commanders were thus in the most part literally the same and in the next reign formed the basis of Prince Rupert's code of 1672. The famed discipline of Cromwell's (Cromwell, Oliver) army was due not to any improved code but to the fact that the articles were rigorously enforced. On the continent of Europe, the articles of Gustav Adolf continued to be followed until supplanted by the codification of the 19th century, which established throughout those countries a generally similar system that, with revision and amendments, continues to this day.

      With the introduction of a standing army in England in 1689, Parliament aimed to prevent this force coming under complete control of the sovereign by a series of mutiny acts, normally passed annually, to which the prerogative articles were subordinate. By a statute of 1717 the power to make articles was embodied in the act. In the United States in 1775 and again in 1806, articles of war were adopted that were modeled upon the mutiny acts and articles then in force in Great Britain. In the British army, the articles of war were replaced in 1881 by an annually renewed Army Act (reformed in 1955), although they continued in the Royal Navy until 1957. In the United States they were replaced by the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1951.

Jurisdiction

Persons subject to military law
      The jurisdiction of military law is not necessarily confined to offenses injurious to the discipline of the forces committed by members of those forces. It extends in various countries in varying degrees to all offenses committed by members of the forces and to offenses injurious to discipline committed by persons who are not members of those forces.

Military personnel
      In countries in which an obligation to military service exists, soldiers who fail to answer their initial call-up or report for duty are liable to military jurisdiction for such offenses as desertion or self-mutilation either because the military code makes such offenses applicable to them as a class of civilians (as in Belgium, France, Italy, and Israel) or because under the act introducing national service they are deemed to be enlisted on the dispatch of a calling-up notice (as was the case in Great Britain when conscription was in force). They continue to be liable for such offenses, even if not otherwise subject to military law, during authorized absence from the conscripted service or temporary reserve (militia) service. Reservists are also subject (as in Italy) to military jurisdiction for such offenses as treason, communicating with foreign countries, and revelation of official secrets. In Belgium, released soldiers remain liable for rebellion or offenses against superiors committed within one year of their release.

Civilians
      Civilians may become subject to military jurisdiction in any number of ways. In Italy and Turkey, for example, treason or rebellion can be dealt with under the military code, and in Norway breaches by a civilian of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional Protocols of 1977 are dealt with under military law. In other countries, civilians who instigate or participate in military crimes may themselves be triable under military law. In a number of countries, civilians within a war zone or theatre of active operations, or in conditions defined as a “state of siege,” can come under military jurisdiction for offenses similar to those mentioned above—or even completely under military jurisdiction, as in Argentina.

      In other countries, only civilians associated with the armed forces may be triable under service law. In Israel, for example, civilians who are employed by the army, or who have been provided with army weapons, are subject to military law, as are those held in army custody. Under British military law, civilians accompanying armed forces stationed in a foreign country (including families of soldiers as well as British civilians working for or with the services) are triable under offenses against the good order of the military community. In the United States, however, civilians—even those forming part of a service community abroad—cannot in peacetime be tried at all under the military process, though they may become subject to military jurisdiction in time of war. Austria and Spain are among countries in which no civilian can be liable to military jurisdiction.

Prisoners of war (prisoner of war)
      Also among those who fall under military jurisdiction are prisoners of war. Sometimes, as in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, they are expressly included among those to whom the ordinary military law applies; elsewhere, special regulations concerning their behaviour and trial must be passed. Under the third Geneva Convention of 1949, prisoners of war must be tried by a military court, except where the laws of the belligerent expressly allow a member of the belligerent's armed forces to be tried by a civil court for the same offenses. Prisoners of war must not be sentenced to any penalties other than those which might be inflicted on members of the forces of the detaining power for the same act.

Offenses against military law
      The military law of the Anglo-American (common law) countries and of countries deriving their military law from them, such as India and other independent members of the British Commonwealth, differs from that of the majority of the continental countries in that the latter tend to divide military offenses into two classes: crimes that are the subject of judicial punishment and, second, breaches of discipline that are subject only to administrative action. The former group of countries (and a few others, including most communist countries) recognize no such distinction, regarding all military offenses as crimes. Apart from offenses of a peculiarly military nature, such as mutiny, insubordination, desertion, and misconduct in action or in performance of service duties, when an act committed by a soldier constitutes an offense in the civil code, it will frequently constitute an offense of which military law takes cognizance. In the Soviet Union and Belgium, for example, all civil offenses committed by soldiers, except very minor ones, are tried by military court. In France, Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia, in peacetime, all crimes, military or civil, are dealt with by civil courts. Great Britain, Canada, and other countries include as military crimes all actions committed by soldiers anywhere that would be offenses against the criminal law of their own country, although the most serious of these cannot be tried by a military court unless committed abroad, or in India at specified Frontier Posts. In the United States, because of the differences between the criminal law of different states, certain civil crimes are specifically made offenses against the military code. All countries have rules to prevent the double jeopardy of an offender being punished for one act by both civil and military jurisdiction. Generally, when civil jurisdiction may be exercised, this takes precedence over military jurisdiction.

Procedure

Summary (summary jurisdiction) punishment
      In both Anglo-American and continental systems, soldiers are subjected to penalties imposed summarily as well as to those imposed by courts. In the majority of countries, summary penalties can be inflicted only by officers not lower than the rank of captain, the commanding officer of the military unit being the principal source of discipline. The forms of punishment so inflicted are normally loss of privileges for a specified period, fines, or deprivation of liberty. Higher military commanders usually have power to deal summarily with officers (normally up to the rank of major), though in some countries these will not be liable to loss of liberty.

      Under the British and some other systems of military law, if a commanding officer has it in mind to award a punishment beyond a certain degree of severity (usually including deprivation of liberty), he must first offer the accused the option of being tried by a court-martial. Also, in Britain, the United States, and other common-law countries the accused may complain of unjust or unduly severe punishment to the commanding officer's superiors. Such complaints may proceed to the highest level, in effect achieving a review of the commanding officer's award. In other countries the soldier may appeal to a tribunal; in yet others, such as Norway and Sweden, he may have a right of appeal through the chain of military command up to a certain level (the brigade commander in Norway; in Sweden, the regimental commander) but, beyond that, to a tribunal (in Sweden, the county court).

Between summary action and trial
      In the Anglo-American countries, offenses beyond a commanding officer's powers are dealt with by a service court (court-martial). In the continental countries, military crimes and similar offenses are also dealt with judicially. In the latter, however, there is an intermediate form of tribunal that deals with the more serious breaches of discipline and may impose punishments affecting a soldier's career, such as loss of rank or appointment, dismissal, or forfeiture of pension rights. In Germany, military courts of service, which also hear soldiers' complaints, may impose career sanctions. Also to be noted are the unit assemblies in the Soviet Union, which are general assemblies of all military members of a unit. All those attending are invited to comment on the behaviour under investigation. An elected tribunal, normally of five, decides whether the public examination is in itself sufficient educational corrective of the aberrant behaviour or whether the offender should be reported to a competent commander for disciplinary measures.

Pretrial procedure
      Military courts follow judicial procedures no less formal than those of the higher civil courts. There is always some form of preliminary investigatory procedure that fills a role similar to that of the committal proceedings in the British legal system, the grand jury in the United States, and the juge d'instruction in continental systems. Under the British system, and those of Commonwealth and other countries deriving from it, it is the accused's commanding officer who is responsible for the conduct of this quasi-judicial investigation, having the evidence reduced to writing, considering it, and deciding whether it justifies his remanding the accused for trial by court-martial. Under other military legal systems, the preliminary investigation is likely to be in the hands of a military magistrate and set in motion by a military procurator, who corresponds to the official responsible in such countries for initiating civil prosecutions on the public behalf. In Israel, whose military judicial procedures otherwise derive from the British model, the responsibility for both the investigation and the decision to proceed to trial rests with a military advocate, the commanding officer being excluded altogether from the investigative process and forbidden to interfere with it.

Protecting the accused
      Pending trial, all countries maintain a presumption of the accused's innocence. He must be allowed full facilities for preparing his defense, and there are normally safeguards provided to protect him from being held unjustifiably in arrest before trial. In some systems his arrest must be ordered and authorized by a magistrate, usually for a limited period only. Where the accused's commanding officer is empowered to authorize arrest, he is likely to be obliged to report the progress of the case at specified and frequent intervals to higher authority, so that the need to retain the accused in arrest can be constantly monitored.

Composition of the court
      Courts-martial are generally composed, depending on the type of case, of between three and seven judges; these are usually military officers, though in some countries the membership of the court may include other ranks and even civilian judges. In the United States, for instance, the accused enlisted man may require that not less than one-third of the court be made up of enlisted men. In the Soviet Union the court includes popular assessors, elected from the ranks of the unit and holding office for two years. British military law provides for the court to include civilian crown servants when the accused is a civilian, one if the court is a district court-martial and two if the trial is by general court-martial.

      The military courts of most countries embody at least one lawyer, who may be a legally qualified serving officer or a civilian and whose role may be either that of a participating member of the judicial tribunal (sometimes its president) or that of a legal adviser to a tribunal composed of lay military men. The judicial independence of the professional lawyers, where they serve as participating judges, is commonly safeguarded by their appointment on a fixed tenure of office. In Israel, for example, a legally qualified officer on a five- to seven-year tenure sits as president with two lay officers. The Belgian military court consists of a civilian judge on a three-year tenure sitting with four serving officers. In Italy two permanent civilian judges sit with one military officer who is selected by lot for a two-month tour of duty as a member of the court. In France the military tribunal consists, in wartime, of two civil and three military judges (since 1983 French soldiers in peacetime have come entirely under civil jurisdiction). In the Soviet Union, the professional element is supplied by the presidents, vice presidents, and members of military courts, who are nominated by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; in courts of first instance it is one of these appointed professionals who sits with the two popularly elected assessors.

      In those courts in which the lawyer sits as a legally qualified judge, he takes part with the other members of the tribunal in deliberating upon the court's finding, as is usually the custom in civil trials in their countries. The other mode of trial, in which the lawyer is advisory to a court-martial of laymen, is more common in countries accustomed to the Anglo-American mode of jury trial, where the professional judge, having instructed a lay fact-finding body (the jury) as to the principles of law they must apply, takes no part in their subsequent deliberations. In a similar manner, the legal adviser to the court-martial sums up the law and the facts in open court and then retires, leaving the members of the tribunal to their own discussions and returning only when they announce their finding. The adviser normally remains present during the court's subsequent discussions on sentence, but only as an adviser, having no vote. In Britain and the countries of the Commonwealth, this legal adviser to a court-martial is termed a judge advocate. The British judge advocate is almost always a member of the judicial staff of the judge advocate general, a civilian official responsible to the lord chancellor and, thus, entirely independent of the service authorities. Many Commonwealth countries also make use of a civilian judge advocate. In the United States the erstwhile legal adviser to the court-martial has been replaced by a military judge, who is a serving officer but is part of an independent military judiciary. When sitting with a court-martial, his functions remain advisory, much as already described; he has, however, also been given an alternative jurisdiction to sit, at the request of the accused, as the sole judge in the case, determining guilt or innocence and, in the event of a finding of guilty, passing sentence.

Courts of varying competence
      In some countries there are grades of courts-martial with varying competence as regards persons whom they may try or punishment they may impose. In the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, general courts-martial composed of not less than five officers with a legal adviser (military judge in the United States) may deal with all persons subject to military law and pass any sentence authorized by the code; special courts-martial (United States), district courts-martial (Britain), and disciplinary courts-martial (Canada) consist of at least three officers and have limited powers. In the Soviet Union there are inferior, intermediate, and superior courts. Although under the Anglo-American system, in cases of minor importance, prosecution and defense may be conducted by regimental officers of no legal qualifications, in the majority of countries, the prosecution will normally be in the hands of a legally qualified official, known variously as commissioner, fiscal general, auditor, or military procurator.

Counsel for the accused
      A soldier being dealt with summarily, or by disciplinary procedure that is not regarded as judicial action, is not usually defended—though this right has been introduced in The Netherlands, is under examination in the United Kingdom, and is not forbidden in West Germany, should the soldier so desire. In trials before military courts, all countries allow the accused to be assisted in his defense by an advocate, and in some countries this is compulsory. All countries permit the employment of qualified civilian lawyers. In Greece and the Soviet Union, the defense may be conducted by the family or friends of the accused. In the Soviet Union, additionally, such persons as representatives of syndicates and other social organizations may defend.

      The stage at which a defender may operate varies. Normally, he may assist immediately after the first interrogation, when an accused is informed of his rights. He then has rights of intervention during the process of instruction and must be present at such features of it as the interrogation of the accused. In other countries (as in Greece), the defender has no part in the instruction and appears only at the trial.

Appeal through the courts
      Under the Anglo-American system, a court-martial's finding of guilty and its sentence must normally be confirmed by the military commander who convened the trial or by an officer superior to him. They are also subject to further review at higher levels in the military chain of command. The convicted soldier is entitled to petition the confirming officer and, subsequently, any reviewing authority against either the finding or the sentence. In some systems there may be, instead of or in addition to this right, a right of appeal from the court-martial to a superior military court. In most countries there is either an immediate or an ultimate right of appeal to a court of civilian judges—in Continental countries a Court of Cassation and in Britain a Courts-Martial Appeal Court consisting in practice of judges of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal. In both the United States and Britain, there can in some circumstances be a final appeal to the highest court in the land—namely, in the United States the Supreme Court and in Britain the House of Lords. In Israel, too, the right of appeal from courts-martial can extend to the Supreme Court.

      In general, appeal courts are concerned only with the legality of conviction, not with matters of sentence, and the supreme courts only with points of law. Normally, only the defense can appeal, but sometimes, as in the Soviet Union, the prosecution too can appeal either against the original finding and sentence of the court-martial or on a question of law.

      In a few countries, representations about conditions of service and applications for advice and help outside the normal service channels may be made through specific officials. In Norway a military ombudsman was introduced in 1952. This official sometimes raises questions on disciplinary and penal offenses. The first military ombudsman was probably in Sweden, established in 1915 to take note of the sentences of military courts, conditions in military prisons, and other matters of military administration. This office as such, however, was abolished in 1968, and the supervision of the military, including complaints by soldiers, became part of the responsibilities of one of four parliamentary ombudsmen. The route of appeal by way of an ombudsman or similar civilian official in those countries that have them (including, among others, Finland and West Germany) has developed into an effective means of protecting the rights of soldiers within the military system.

Wartime procedure
      Almost all countries, including those that leave the soldier in peacetime to an exclusively civilian jurisdiction, make provision for trial in time of war or emergency by military courts composed wholly or predominantly of soldiers. Sweden is an exception; even in wartime, military offenders can be tried only by the ordinary county courts. Where the normal peacetime military court is wholly or mainly composed of soldiers, provision may be made for fewer or for less-senior officers than would be called to constitute a court in peacetime. Procedure may be simplified, sometimes including an abridgment of the rights of appeal and an empowerment of the military commander to override these rights when military discipline and morale call for the immediate and exemplary execution of the penalty—including, in some cases, a death sentence.

Legal trends
      Since the 1950s and '60s there has been a trend toward the civilianization of military courts. France has joined Norway, Sweden, and West Germany in placing its servicemen in peacetime exclusively under civil jurisdiction. In countries that have not gone as far as this, the military court of first instance has come to include a substantial number—sometimes a majority—of civil judges. Necessarily, this is possible only in countries whose armed forces are stationed entirely within (or within easy reach of) their own frontiers.

      The 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, along with various rulings on its applications to military trials, have led some European countries to overhaul or amend their military judicial processes. This has had the aim of bringing them into compliance, in particular, with articles 5 and 6 of the Convention, which provide that no one may be deprived of his liberty save by a competent court and that the accused may declare his right upon a “criminal charge” to a “fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”

      Both the European human rights convention and the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expressly recognize that the right of free association may lawfully be restricted in the armed forces. Nevertheless, some countries (notably West Germany and The Netherlands) permit soldiers to form unions in order to safeguard and improve their working and economic conditions—though not to the extent of engaging in “industrial actions” such as strikes. Other countries allow servicemen to belong to unions appropriate to their particular trades.

      Political activity by servicemen on behalf of a particular faction or cause would clearly be detrimental to the needs of discipline in an armed force. In general, there is an increasing tendency to allow soldiers far greater freedom during off-duty hours, so that life in barracks has come to resemble far more closely that of the civilian holding an “eight-till-five” job. There remains, however, the need for the military commander to exercise sufficient control over the private lives of his subordinates to ensure the efficiency, discipline, and good order of the force for which he is responsible. Any orders reasonably calculated to maintain these objectives are normally lawful, even though they may prohibit the soldier from some activity that may not be unlawful for a civilian. Few armed forces are, for example, prepared to retain practicing homosexuals (homosexuality) in their ranks—not because of any moral disapproval but because the development of homosexual relationships within the closed community of a fighting force is all too likely to be subversive of discipline and effectiveness. For similar reasons—that is, the efficiency of the individual soldier and the force to which he belongs—the use of drugs (drug) is likely to be severely discountenanced.

William Edward Stubbs James Stuart-Smith

Additional Reading
The development of military law in the United States is traced in United States Army, Judge Advocate General's Corps, The Army Lawyer: A History of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, 1775–1975 (1975); and Military Law Review Bicentennial Issue (1975), an anthology of articles by 17 authors. Both are useful for the general reader as well as the specialist. A concise history of British military law is found in Peter Rowe, Defence: The Legal Implications: Military Law and the Laws of War (1987). Frederick B. Wiener, Civilians Under Military Justice: The British Practice Since 1689, Especially in North America (1967), offers a general history of the subject, with a focus on the British administration of 18th-century America. A special aspect of military law is treated in Nico Keijzer, Military Obedience (1978). International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, The Present Evolution of Military Justice, 2 vol. (1981), studies systems of military law throughout the world on the basis of national reports from 25 countries. See also James Stuart-Smith, “Military Law: Its History, Administration, and Practice,” Law Quarterly Review, 85:478–504 (October 1969).James Stuart-Smith

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Universalium. 2010.

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