Bye-bye Bolsonaro

A Brazilian court is considering whether former President Jair Bolsonaro and several senior officers should be dismissed for attempting a coup  Excerpt from this report:

Brazil's Superior Military Court (STM) notified former president Jair Bolsonaro and three other generals, already convicted for the attempted coup against current head of state Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Tuesday, thus beginning the judicial proceedings stemming from allegations of unworthiness raised in early February by the Military Prosecutor's Office for their participation in the coup plot.

“Former President Jair Bolsonaro and Army Generals Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, Augusto Heleno, and Braga Neto have been summoned by their respective investigating judges to submit their written defenses within ten business days from the date of the summons,” the STM reported on its website regarding the retired military officers sentenced by the civil courts to prison terms of 27, 19, 21, and 26 years, respectively.

The court has emphasized that this summons "marks the beginning of the process, as it concludes the preliminary phases and gives way to the formal statement of the accused."

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The initiative presented by the military attorney general, Clauro Bortolli, called Representation for Declaration of Unworthiness for the Officer Corps, is the mechanism by which the Military Justice must decide whether a member of the Armed Forces sentenced to more than two years in prison, for military or common crime, maintains or does not maintain the necessary condition to continue being part of the officer corps.

Ten of the STM's 15 judges are military officers. 

Worth the read?

The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States 1st Edition

by Kori Schake (Author)

See all formats and editions

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America’s Founding Fathers feared that a standing army would be a permanent political danger, yet the U.S. military has in the 250 years since become a bulwark of democracy. Kori Schake explains why in this compelling history of civil-military relations from independence to the challenges of the present.

The book begins with General Washington's vital foundational example of subordination to elected leaders during the Revolutionary War. Schake recounts numerous instances in the following century when charismatic military leaders tried to challenge political leaders and explains the emergence of restrictions on uses of the military for domestic law enforcement. She explores the crucial struggle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress after Lincoln’s assassination, when Ulysses Grant had to choose whether to obey the Commander-in-Chief or the law – and chose to obey the law. And she shows how the professionalization of the military in the twentieth century inculcated norms of civilian control.

The U.S. military is historically anomalous for maintaining its strength and popularity while never becoming a threat to democracy. Schake concludes by asking if its admirable record can be sustained when the public is pulling the military into the political divisions of our time.

Where should this case be tried?

Nigerian military officers stand accused of plotting a coup. Court-martial or civilian trial? Femi Falana SAN says it cannot be a military trial. This article explains why. Excerpt:

“Since the indicted civilians are not subject to service law, they cannot be tried in a military court,” he said. 

“Even in the case of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola v The Federal Republic of Nigeria (1995) 1 NWLR (Pt.370) 155, the defendant was charged with treasonable felony at the Federal High Court. Similarly, in the case of Ameh Ebute v State (1994) 8 NWLR (Pt 360) 66, the defendants including Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu (now President) were charged with treason at the Federal High Court.”

The lawyer recalled several landmark rulings, including the 2025 Supreme Court decision in Uganda, which declared that military courts lack jurisdiction to try civilians. 

He said, “The illegal practice of prosecuting civilians in military courts has just been stopped by the Supreme Court of Uganda in the case of Dr. Kizza Besigye & Another v Attorney General & Another (Miscellaneous Cause 31 of 2025) [2025] UGHCCD 29 (24 February 2025).

Kelly v. Hegseth

The National Lawyers Guild's Military Law Task Force has issued this position paper "in defense of Sen. Mark Kelly." Excerpt:

[Pete] Hegseth’s more recent use of  administrative action , threatening to demote Kelly and reduce his veteran’s benefits, is a retreat from earlier threats to prosecute Kelly, for ‘contemptuous speech” under the rarely-used Article 88. When those threats were made, we were confident that a trial was unlikely, given that career military prosecutors are JAGs, well versed in what UCMJ covers. They’d know that the Army Court of Criminal Review ruled in 1969: “As a matter of law, an order of a subordinate which contravenes the Constitution, a federal statute, a presidential executive order, a departmental regulation or other lawful directive of higher authority can have no lawful validity,” (US v Patton, U.S.A.C.M.R. 1969). And a century earlier, the US Supreme Court  pointed out: “A soldier cannot justify on the ground that he was obeying the orders of his superior officer” if “a person of ordinary intelligence would know that obedience would be illegal and criminal.” Dow v. Johnson, 100 U.S. 158, 189 (1879).That same decision adds that “the established principle of every free people is, that the law shall alone govern; and to it the military must always yield.”

 And those JAGs would know that servicemembers and veterans are protected by the First Amendment’s free speech provisions, as  highlighted by the National Institute [of] Military Justice: “Although the military code criminalizes certain types of speech that may affect the military mission, the Senator’s remarks are far from criminal. He simply restated a fundamental principle of military law: service members must obey lawful orders and disobey unlawful orders.”

Military justice reform in Botswana

After years of preparation, the Botswana Defence Force has an updated military justice system. The new system is outlined in this video.