Procedure

Appeal

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.

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 person may require that not less than one-third of the court be made up of enlisted persons. 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 members of the military. 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 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 laypersons, 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. 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. 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 the defense may be conducted by the family or friends of the accused.

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, to the Supreme Court. 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 the prosecution too can appeal either against the original finding and sentence of the court-martial or on a question of law.

The ombudsman

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) has developed into an effective means of protecting the rights of soldiers within the military system.