Safeguarding the role of America's military lawyers

Protect Democracy United's Zachary T. West has written this primer -- well worth study. Excerpt:

THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (JAG) Corps is critical to maintaining good order and discipline across the U.S. military, providing legal assistance to servicemembers and their families, and ensuring lawful combat operations. Yet this institution is facing unprecedented challenges, including the no-cause firing of the Army and Air Force’s top JAG officers and the Pentagon’s announcement that it would reassign judge advocates to serve as temporary immigration law judges and backfill vacancies in U.S. Attorney’s offices. This paper discusses the history and purpose of the JAG Corps, recent challenges to its independence and ability to serve as a trusted advisor, and how Congress can strengthen U.S. military readiness by protecting the JAG Corps from improper influence and misuse.

Juridictions militaires

A reader has asked for a link to the French Senate report cited here. Here is a working link for Italy. If any readers can find other pertinent Senate links, please add them in a comment.

Fidell and Rosenblatt on the Military Justice Review Panel

This blog's editor and Franklin Rosenblatt wrote "The Armed Forces Need the Military Justice Review Panel" in Just Security about the Pentagon's disregard of the review body required by law in favor of more secretive and malleable internal review bodies. 

Among these is defense secretary Pete Hegseth's recent announcement of an internal "special" panel reviewing military justice. The authors argue that this development

[I]s highly concerning. Rather than some new handcrafted DoD entity, it is crucial that the Military Justice Review Panel (MJRP) be restored as required under statute. Any further erosion of confidence in the country’s military justice system–for that will be the outcome of Hegseth’s internal effort–will have a profound negative impact on the U.S. military’s good order and discipline, and morale, and detract from the country’s national security. 

The authors conclude:

If the Trump administration does not reinstate the MJRP, Congress should vigorously object to the creation of Hegseth’s “special review panel” and demand that the MJRP, created by a still-in-force federal statute with a mandate to report to Congress, be revived immediately. Confidence in the country’s adherence to the rule of law and in the U.S. military justice system has never been more critical.

What's in store for DoD's military justice review?

Who even knows?, asks practitioner Cody Harnish in this video. DoD has still not released hard copy of the governing document.

Sen. Mark Kelly's case -- is there a "there" there?

Prof. Ryan Burke writes here on the case of Senstor Mark Kelly. His cconclusion:

[A]fter all the noise, we are left with the same conclusion: there is no there, there. No legal order actually at issue. No sedition. No Article 88 violation. No singular statement that can be traced to Senator Kelly as a standalone call for misconduct. Just a spliced, multi-voice video and a sprawling overreaction.

The Pentagon would do well to step out of this self-created fog and return its focus to matters that actually threaten the country. Because this is not one of them. This is, once again, much ado about nothing – the latest entry in a growing catalog of Pentagon follies that never should have escaped the cutting room floor.

Except for the suggestion that this is much ado about nothing, it's hard to disagree. But the implications of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's vendetta again Sen. Kelly are far from nothing. The implications for free speech, whether by senators or retirees, are grave.