French military justice

Pierre Bricard, a retired French civil magistrate, has written The Role of the Military Prosecution in France. The article appears in the May 2023 issue of the Brazilian journal Revista do Ministério Público Militar. Excerpt:

. . . [S]ince the Dreyfus affair and the summary judgments and executions of soldiers during the first world war, military Courts have not a good reputation and they have been very frowned upon by public opinion. Moreover, in peacetime, the maintenance of military courts has been no longer necessary. In addition, these courts generated a significant cost for the  State budget. The integration of military justice into the common law judicial organization have been therefore a measure of rationalization and standardization of justice and made it possible to redeploy the military judicial staff to civilian tasks.

     Now in peacetime the military public prosecutor no longer depends on the Minister of Defense but on the Minister of Justice. The peacetime military courts being abolished in 1982, military criminal cases are therefore judged by common Courts composed of civilian judges and the procedure has been brought into line with common law.