Supreme Court of Pakistan short order decision in Military Courts Case

The May 7, 2025 "short order" 5-2 decision of the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Shuhada Forum, Balochistan v. Khawaja is now available, although the court's website continues to deny access. The court will at some point be handing down a fuller explanation of the reasons for judgment of the majority and dissenting justices.

The decision appears to conclude that the trial of civilians by military courts is constitutionally acceptable under the court's caselaw, but that the proceedings must be fair:

While restoring the provisions of Army Act, that were struck down by means of the impugned judgment in the original proceedings before this Court, we, in unison, sensitize the need of legislative changes, which will also be compliant to the requirements laid down under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) for maintaining and preserving the constitutional and societal norms in the existing legal framework. Therefore, the matter is referred to the Government/Parliament for considering and making necessary amendments/legislation in the Pakistan Army Act, 1952, and allied Rules within a period of 45 days in order to provide an independent right of appeal in the High Court against the conviction awarded to the persons by the Court Martial/Military Courts under sub-clauses (i) & (ii) of Clause (d) of subsection (1) of Section 2 of the Pakistan Army Act, 1952, read with sub-section (4) of Section 59 of the Pakistan Army Act, 1952. [Emphasis added.]

Note that the above language has the approval of all seven justices, including the dissenters.

Close consideration of the decision of the Constitutional Bench will have to await the handing down of the justices' several opinions, which presumably will go into detail about their reasons for voting as they did. In addition, observers will want to monitor the legislative action, if any, taken in response to the court's opinion regarding the elements of a fair proceeding.

Global Military Justice Reform is grateful to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for kindly providing a copy of the short order decision.

CAAF Rules Guide 24th

The 24th edition of the unofficial Guide to the Rules of Practice and Procedure for the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces is now available. Don't leave home without it.

U.S. Army courts-martial per judge

According to the U.S. Army's Court-Martial Public Record System's Court-Martial List, between July 19, 2024 and July 18, 2025, 43 Army military judges presided over 430 trials. That figure does not include cases listed only as arraignments or Article 39(a), UCMJ sessions. Dividing 430 by 43 produces an average of precisely 10 trials per judge per year. Dividing that by 12 produces an average of 0.833 trials per judge per month. Six judges were tied at one trial each during the year; 20 presided over 5 or fewer trials. The highest number of trials during the period was 35, achieved by a single judge. The runner-up presided over 25 trials.

According to page 12 of the FY24 Report of The Judge Advocate General of the Army, as of the end of that fiscal year, the Army Trial Judiciary had 24 active duty and 18 reserve component military judges.

Does the Army have too many judges? Are cases assigned randomly, as they generally are in the federal district courts? How experienced can judges be if they try only a case or two per year? How do the Army numbers compare with the other services'? By way of comparison, in CY22, military judges in all services tried an average of 16.19 cases each, for a monthly average of 1.35 cases.

Comments are welcome. Real names only, please.

Espionage case in NZ

Keep an eye on New Zealand, where a soldier is to stand trial next month on espionage charges. It's a "double first" (and not in the Oxbridge sense): first N.Z. espionage case and first one to be tried in a N.Z. military court. There's a long list of charges, including the old chestnut of an act likely to prejudice service discipline or bring discredit on the service. And it's taken years to get to trial, the accused having been arrsted in December 2019.

Thai military court upholds lenient sentence in military hazing death case

A long-lasting international military justice case has reached its legal conclusion this week, but the political fallout of the matter endures.  The senior Thai military appeals court affirmed the relatively light sentences of two Thai military academy cadets for hazing abuses which may have led to the death of a first year cadet over 7 years ago.  The case is drawing continuous and escalating political criticism, possibly threatening the Thai military justice system’s independence through reform.  The parallels to incidents in the US military justice system, where individual cases can garner disproportionate attention and publicity driving calls for reform, are evident.

 In 2017, first year Thai military cadet Pakapong Tanyakan, died at the Armed Forces Preparatory School, with his death attributed to “sudden cardiac arrest.”  Days before, the cadet was subjected to substantial punishment, forced to “lean forward with his arms behind his back and his forehead to the ground and then shift his weight from one foot to another in a sweltering sauna” until he became unconscious, as punishment for walking on a reserved footpath.  This punishment resulted in his hospitalization.  Upon return to the academy for training, alleged abuses continued.  Two days later, Tanyakan collapsed and died. 

 Military officials conducted an autopsy and listed the cause of death as cardiac arrest.  The family, however, paid for their own independent autopsy, which found that most of Tanyakan’s organs – heart, stomach and brain – were missing, with the voids filled by tissue paper.  Markings on his body were also consistent with abuse.  The case was the latest in a perceived string of abuse cases resulting in the death of trainees, even as the Thail military has successfully suppressed reform. 

The Thai military is uniquely controlling in Bangkok, since the junta seized power in 2014.  The Thai Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-Ocha, a veteran, is dismissive of the calls for military reform, noting he had suffered the abuses and lived.  Moreover, as a result of the coup, the Thai military is embedded in virtually every institution, in addition to the mandatory conscription of all adult men for 2 year periods of service.

Thailand’s military court system has three levels of judicial bodies – courts of first instance, central (appeals) court, and the Supreme Military Court. On July 22, the Supreme Military Court upheld a lenient sentence – 4 months and 16 days in prison plus a fine, all suspended for 2 years – for two senior cadets found guilty of the assault and unlawful discipline that resulted in Tanyakan’s death.  The court noted the youth of the offenders and lack of prior offenses to justify the insubstantial sentence.  The sentence reflects a possible permissive culture toward martial abuses within the armed forces, even though two Army trainers were sentenced in June to 15 and 20 years imprisonment in a similar death-by-abuse case tried in a special court, the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases.  

The two trainers were tried under a new statute, the 2022 Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, which took effect in February, 2023.  Human Rights Watch’s Asia Director, Elaine Pearson, noted “Appropriate sentences will chip away at the Thai military’s entrench impunity and show that commanders can be held accountable.”  

The new statute may reflect changing attitudes in the Thai government toward a system that killed 21 conscripts between 2009 and 2024, possibly driven by international pressure, including reports from the United Nations. 

One group that does not like NIMJ: Nazis

Today the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ) hosted a meeting focused on lawful and unlawful military orders. It featured six NIMJ experts who each have written about or practiced extensively with issues of military orders. In order to improve public understanding of the issues, the Zoom meeting was open to the public. 

About five minutes in, a person or persons attempted to hijack the meeting. They posted videos and messages praising Hitler and Naziism. They tried to flood this content to disrupt the progress of the presentation.  

The plot was foiled when the NIMJ VP ended the meeting and started a new one including with the same participants as before, minus Nazis. 

In this author's opinion, the fact that the event was targeted by Nazis validates that NIMJ's attention to issues surrounding lawfulness of military orders was timely and important. You might be doing something right when you're battling Nazis.

Supreme Court of Pakistan falls off the radar

In May, the Supreme Court of Pakistan decided intra-court appeals concerning the permissibility of trying civilians by court-martial. The practice was upheld by a divided vote. To date, neither the majority nor dissenting opinions have been made public, and the court's website continues to be inaccessible:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/latest-judgements/" on this server.

Reference #18.b2b3417.1752922886.255505d9

https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.b2b3417.1752922886.255505d9

Human Rights Watch UPR submission regarding Lebanon

Human Rights Watch has made a detailed submission in connection with the pending Uniuversal Periodic Review of Lebanon. Excerpt:

"Lebanese officials have also continued to use the military courts’ jurisdiction over civilians as a means to intimidate or punish them for political activism or to stamp out dissent. Those who have stood trial at military courts describe incommunicado detention, interrogations without a lawyer, ill-treatment and torture, the use of confessions extracted under torture, decisions issued without an explanation, seemingly arbitrary sentences, and a limited ability to appeal." [Footnotes omitted.]

HRW recommends, among other thinbgs, that Lebanon "[e]nact a law to remove civilians from the military court’s jurisdiction entirely."

New changes to U.S. Army reg on investigations

Global Militry Justice Reform contributor Butch Bracknell has this timely piece over at Lawfire on some features of the new edition of Army Regulation 15-6. Excerpts:

The hubbub is all about changes to three paragraphs in Army Regulation (AR) 15-6 – edits to paragraphs 1-8, 1-9, and 1-10.  These edits were driven by the Secretary of Defense’s Memorandum of April 23, 2025 entitled “Restoring Good Order and Discipline Through Balanced Accountability.”  The memo directed reviews and revisions to all the military departments Equal Opportunity (EO) (military) and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)(civilian) programs and processes. 

The Army expanded the guidance in the memo to all administrative investigations, the processes of which are governed by AR 15-6, including mishap and misconduct investigations not rising to a level that investigative jurisdiction is assumed by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division. 

These three paragraphs, collectively, reinforce the requirement for a gatekeeping function for initiation of investigations, and remind commanders of the option to hold soldiers accountable for making “knowingly” making false allegations or repeatedly submit frivolous complaints.

Revised investigatory guidance has not yet been made public for the other services.  It is a safe bet it is coming, given the origin of the change was Secretarial authority.

*. *. *

[T]hese changes to AR 15-6 (and doubtless forthcoming changes to other service investigative guidance) may simply be a tempest in a teapot.  The revised language could have a knock-on effect of discouraging complaints with merit, as the language may set a tone for potential complainants in which they hear suppression and discouragement of surfacing meritorious complaints.

Bastille Day in France

 By special request, on La Fête Nationale.

ChatGPT tells us that le 14 Juillet—commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, a defining event of the French Revolution. And suggests a Democratic Legacy representing:

• The fall of absolutism and divine right monarchy,

• The rise of citizenship, rule of law, and civil liberties,

• The struggle for democratic rights against authoritarianism.

Further, it has  

• Inspired movements for constitutional government, civil rights, and freedom of expression.

• Many liberal and democratic revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries borrowed from French republicanism—notably the American civil rights movement, Latin American independence struggles, and European liberal revolutions.

And a great scene from a great movie, and a fantastic parade, and the poster's choice of le Boudin

Conscientious objection

Mother Jones has this War Horse story about in-service conscientious objection within the U.S. armed forces in light of the Gaza war and domestic deployment issues. Excerpts:

The ongoing legal dispute leaves troops little choice for now but to follow Trump’s order, said Carrie A. Lee, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a former professor at the US Army War College.

“It’s actually a very high bar for thinking about disobeying unlawful orders,” Lee told The War Horse. “There is no provision for what a service member decides is immoral or unethical, because those are personal judgments based on personal decisions about morality and ethics. And you know, you can’t be injecting every unique individual’s own ethics into military orders.”

*  *  *

The number of would-be conscientious objectors has remained relatively small in the years since September 11, 2001, but the numbers rise around new missions. The post-Vietnam peak followed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the Army, the largest of the military services and the most commonly represented in both foreign and domestic missions, the highest number of conscientious objector applications over the last quarter century came in 2005, with 74 applications, of which 39, or 52 percent, were approved. By comparison, more than 73,000 soldiers joined the Army that fiscal year, and about 60,000 soldiers transition annually out of the service for all reasons.

In 2024, the Army granted five applications and denied one; to date this year, three have been granted and two are pending, according to data provided by Army headquarters. Given the work required to submit a conscientious objector application, it’s unlikely these numbers reflect any recent callers to the GI Rights Hotline.

The United States does not recognize selective conscientious objection.

Try the High Court instead

The website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan remains inaccessible, so we do not yet have copies of the majority and dissenting opinions in the Military Courts Case. But now comes the Peshawar High Court, which holds that it has jurisdiction to review military court cases. 

Who knows what the Supreme Court will do when (if) such a case comes before it on appeal from the High Court? 

Dawn has the story here.

NIMJ Zoom. Orders Project: "Lawful and Unlawful Military Orders: Current Issues and Ideas."

21 July at 4PM, (East Coast U.S. time)

The panel discussion will be led by NIMJ President Frank Rosenblatt.

The panel:

Professor Josh Braver, University of Wisconsin Law School

Professor Saira Mohamed, UC Berkeley School of Law

Professor Tony Ghiotto, University of Illinois College of Law

Professor Dan Maurer, Ohio Northern University

Priya Rashid, Legal Director of NIMJ’s Transgender Representation Project.

Zoom in at this LINK.

More (unlawful) U.S. militarization of immigration

Well, this isn't squarely military justice, but it involves military lawyers (judge advocates, or JAGs) who are an integral component of military justice:  see here for the flawed proposal by the Trump Admin to federalize National Guard JAGS to ... wait for it ... serve as Article I immigration judges. 

OK, these so-called civilian  "judges" (actually, employees of the executive branch, as they serve the Attorney General) on their best day are not independent nor impartial, but they claim to be. Importantly, any federalized military lawyers serving in such quasi-judicial (but really, law enforcement role) -- if the President doesn't invoke the Insurrection Act (no facts support such invocation) and if he doesn't find another (non-existent!!) express statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA), such use of these military JAGS is unlawful. Recall that the PCA prohibits active duty and federalized military members from  executing the law, that is, serving in law enforcement roles, unless there is an express statutory or constitutional exception. The reason behind the PCA is that we Americans don't like living under domestic military occupation and don't want to be ... that is, we don't want to live under martial law nor come close.  And guess what? Per our Supreme Court, military tribunals (military courts) hearing civilian cases -- prosecuting or otherwise deciding the legal fate of civilians -- are the hallmark of martial law in the US. And doesn't a civilian immigration court, if headed by a MILITARY JUDGE, sure look like a military tribunal?

As a resident of Los Angeles, I've witnessed firsthand the increasing militarization of immigration enforcement in the US. Recall Martin Niemoller's powerful WWII warning: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

If folks aren't held accountable for breaches of standards...then standards lose value as standards...

See here for an alleged breach of public trust, both as an elected civil servant (county commissioner in Oregon) and (again, allegedly) as a commander in the U.S. Air Force's Civil Air Patrol organization. Folks in the latter are civilians hence not subject to the UCMJ, but are expected to adhere to the standards outlined in the Code. Well, time will tell if these expectations come with accountability .... at least there is the.ballot box. 

UK court-martial for sharing Oct. 7, ISIS execution videos

HHJ Alan Large
Judge Advocate General

The Times of London reports here on an unusual prosecution in the Court Martial. Excerpt:

Two British Army soldiers have been court-martialled for sharing graphic helmet-cam videos filmed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.

Signallers Zakariya Munir and Mohammed Salah sent video showing desecrated bodies the day after the atrocities took place in Israel in 2023.

The servicemen, from the 10th Signal Regiment, claimed “you won’t see this in the media” as they shared clips of corpses being kicked and montages of “dead civilians lying in pools of blood”.

The pair, who have now been dismissed from the army, also shared an “exceptionally violent piece of footage” of an Islamic State execution.

HHJ Alan Large, the Judge Advocate General, sentenced both men to be dismissed.

South Sudan court-martial concludes

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has issued the following news release and notes to editors:

A General Court Martial, supported by the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces, concluded in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal, on 5 July. It was preceded by two investigation missions to Wau and Jur River counties where 34 pending cases were reviewed.

Subsequently, the military court adjudicated 20 criminal cases, convicting nine members of the SSPDF, stripping them of their ranks and dismissing them from military service.

Notably, the General Court Martial delivered verdicts on two cases related to sexual and gender-based violence, resulting in convictions of seven and 10 years, respectively. Additionally, a conflict related sexual violence case involving multiple assailants and an underage victim was adjudicated, a first of its kind for such military court martials in South Sudan.

The highest-ranking member of the SSPDF convicted was a Lieutenant Colonel, for the loss of a weapon. Two civilians in detention were released from military custody since they do not fall within the jurisdiction of a military court, while another civilian on trial for killing two SSPDF soldiers was sentenced to two years imprisonment and ordered to pay 62 heads of cattle or a monetary equivalent as blood compensation to the victims’ families.

The Court also heard six cases involving conflict related crimes committed during clashes in February 2025 in Kwajiena village, Jur River county. A lack of identification of assailants by victims, despite strong testimonies, did not lead to prosecutorial action in this regard. However, the hearing resulted in a directive to the state government to award financial compensation to all victims in accordance with South Sudan’s civil procedure code.

The General Court Martial team included two female judge-advocates to ensure that both female and male victims and witnesses were supported during the process. All victims also had access to two civilian victims’ counsel, who provided free legal advice and actively participated in the proceedings to protect victim rights and help them navigate the justice process.

This military court was followed by a civil-military dialogue in Wau with a focus on joint efforts to combat sexual violence. The aim was to strengthen trust between uniformed personnel and communities, as well as obtain real time feedback on the impact of such military justice interventions on host populations.

The Wau General Court Martial was funded by the generous support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Juba. In particular, it builds on the work of similar military proceedings that took place in Wau in 2022, which resulted in convictions of eight members of the SSPDF for murder. The convicted soldiers were stripped of their ranks and dismissed from the SSPDF.

As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen justice mechanisms and rule of law processes, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) also provided funding for victims and witnesses to receive psychosocial support before, during, and after trial.

Note to Editors:

The SSPDF’s Military Justice Directorate (MJD) deploys General Courts Martials to promote accountability for crimes committed by members of the SSPDF, instill discipline among its ranks and strengthen its relationship with civilian populations.

During the closing of the Wau General Court Martial, the SSPDF Military Justice Directorate distributed to all military personnel at the Fifth Infantry Division, ‘Six Key Messages to End Sexual Violence’ that are binding standing orders developed by the Directorate.

The Wau General Court Martial is part of continued partnerships between UNMISS and the Military Justice Directorate to strengthen accountability within the SSPDF. Since 2020, the Military Justice Directorate, with support from UNMISS, has deployed 14 such courts to nine locations across South Sudan, and addressed a total of 136 criminal cases involving uniformed personnel, including murder, assault, and sexual and gender-based violence.

Greedy Tommy and all that -- book review by Dwight Sullivan

Adm. Sir John Duckworth, RN

The Royal Navy’s Admiral John Byng was famously court-martialed and executed in 1757 for the offense of failing to "do his utmost" during the 1756 Battle of Minorca. That inspired Voltaire’s quip that the British “kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”

Byng’s court-martial was too early to be included in John Morrow’s about-to-be-released book (July 10, 2025, publication date), Admirals in Court: Discipline, Honour and Naval Justice, 1778-1814. Excerpts available on Google Books nevertheless suggest that the work is a spirited, insightful look into the British naval justice system from the time of the American Revolution through the War of 1812.

Morrow is a professor emeritus of politics and international relations at the University of Auckland. His latest book offers a deep dive into the nine courts-martial of Royal Navy flag officers from 1778 to 1814. As he explains in the preface, “Courts martial were used by the Admiralty Board and less directly by governments to uphold discipline and punish wrong-doing (which includes failures in key duties) and maintain the aggressive and dynamic culture of the Royal Navy.” He later refers to “the first rule” of a British officer: “fight the French whenever he can.”

The book’s opening chapter, about court-martial procedures in Britain’s “Senior Service,” will particularly interest military lawyers. Unsurprisingly, the admirals’ courts-martial were, in some respects, atypical of the era’s British naval justice system. Morrow observes that during the period he studied, “[f]lag officers invariably had assistance from legal counsel when writing their defence statements and they usually read them to the court on the accused’s behalf. However, legal counsel played no other formal role in court martial proceedings.” The flag officers’ “courts martial were usually longer than most other naval trials and were also more elaborate, at times involving extensive lists of witnesses.” Morrow also notes that the “defence statements of men from the lower deck were often brief, confined mainly to acknowledging guilt and seeking, by reference to previous good service, to mitigate the severity of the penalty. That was not the case for flag officers.” Most of the accused admirals “took full advantage of the opportunity to provide detailed rebuttals of charges and the evidence of prosecution witnesses.”

The excerpts from Morrow’s case studies available on Google Books offer engaging descriptions of the admirals’ alleged offenses and resulting trials. For example, his chapter about the 1805 court-martial of Vice Admiral Sir John [Thomas] Duckworth is titled “Vice Admiral Duckworth’s Excess Baggage.” It refers to enlisted sailors’ nickname for Duckworth: “greedy Tommy.” Other chapters include bracing accounts of naval battles lost and won—or avoided—and the resulting consequences at courts-martial.

The table of contents suggests that the principal text is roughly 200 pages plus notes, bibliography, and index. But my perusal of the full book will be delayed by its price. Bloomsbury Academic—the volume’s publisher—charges the princely sums of $103.50 for the hardback edition and $82.80 for a PDF. Amazon charges even more for the hardback and $103.50 for a Kindle edition. Worldcat lists it at just seven U.S. libraries—Montclair State University’s library being the closest to Washington, D.C. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will arrive at a closer library once we reach its formal publication date.

None of the trials featured in the book ended in a Byngesque firing squad. Still, the Royal Navy court-martialed nine admirals over thirty-six years with the apparent goal of encouraging the others.

_____

Dwight Sullivan is a senior counsel at the Air Force Appellate Defense Division and a professorial lecturer in law at the George Washington University Law School. The views expressed in this guest post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any of its components.

[Editor's Note -- thanks and BZ to Mr. Sullivan, prolific author and varacious assimilator of esoterica.]

Russian military commanders authorized to detain soldiers without judicial approval

The Moscow Times reports in a recent article that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting military commanders in operational zones the power to detain soldiers for infractions without a court decision. The decree amends the Armed Forces' Disciplinary Code, allowing unit commanders to sentence soldiers to up to 10 days of detention in temporary custodial facilities near the front lines, known as guardhouses. Previously, only military courts had this authority.

The new rules enable commanders, after conducting an internal investigation, to either take disciplinary action against soldiers or refer the matter to a military court. The Defense Ministry justified these changes by citing the distance between military courts and the front lines. It would disrupt military operations and waste resources, the ministry claimed.

Notably, guardhouses were reinstated in 2007 for serious misconduct cases, and since the Ukraine invasion, the Defense Ministry has revived field guardhouses in practice, creating secret detention sites for offenders. Offenses that can lead to detention include using smartphones and other devices while off-duty. Russia banned personal smartphones on the battlefield, except for combat use, after soldiers used them to expose abuses and documents incidents.

According to the article, the decree raises concerns about compliance with international human rights standards, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia ratified in 1998. The changes may be seen as a further erosion of due process and judicial oversight in the Russian military. The article in The Moscow Times does not specify the conditions under which the detention is to be served, nor whether the individual soldier can seek review of the commander's decision to a higher authority.

In comparison, US military commanders can impose non-judicial punishment (NJP) for minor offenses, and this can include correctional custody for service members of junior non-officer ranks. Correctional custody is a form of punishment which restricts the individual's freedom of movement, often within a specific area, and can involve additional duties or restrictions. In combat zones, this form of detention is usually served within the unit's area of operations. This could be a designated area within the base camp or a similar secure location that allows for the enforcement of the restriction while minimizing disruption to the unit's mission. Depending on the rank of the military commander, the period of correctional custody could be up to 7 or to 30 days. It must be added that US service members generally have the right to refuse NJP and request a court-martial, save some exceptions, notably if the individual is embarked on a ship.

Returning to Russian military law, ironically, the increase in power given to military commanders is a response to the prohibition on using personal phones to report violations and abuses. Notably, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) imposes a duty on every soldier to report IHL violations, particularly under the principle of command responsibility.

Colonel Drapeau awarded "Order of Canada"

 

On June 30, 2025. Her Excellency, the Right Honorable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced my appointment to the Order of Canada.

CITATION

“Colonel-Maître Michel Drapeau is a leader in military and veteran law. He founded the first Canadian practice specializing in military administrative law, playing an instrumental role in its recognition as an official legal discipline. As a prominent scholar and practitioner, he continues to shape the landscape of Canada law.”

I am profoundly thankful for this award and I am honored and grateful at being recognized in this way by my country. Receiving this award is one of the most important highlights of my career.

Happy Fourth

Military Justice in Ukraine: Renaissance During Wartime

This article, from 2022, was written by Oksana Kaplina, Serhii Kravtsov, and Olena Leyba, for Access to Justice in Eastern Europe. (Hat-tip to Arne Willy Dahl for the link.) The abstract explains:

In the article, the authors raise issues that are relevant for the modern legal system of Ukraine, related to the need to revive the military justice system and, in particular, military courts. The authors emphasize that during the peaceful existence of Ukraine, a dangerous illusion was formed in the society regarding the unnecessary functioning of military justice in the state, however, unforeseen realities fundamentally changed the liberal ideas of peacetime. After the beginning of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the work of many courts was completely paralyzed, the judges did not have an algorithm of actions in war conditions, they urgently left for safe cities, including outside the territory of Ukraine, leaving proceedings, documentation, unfinished cases. The study allowed the authors to come to the conclusion that in a situation of continuing armed aggression, the presence of powerful Armed Forces in the state, and when the country is forced to fight for its independence, it is the military courts that are able to ensure legality and exercise justice and judicial control in accordance with their subject jurisdiction. In order to determine the optimal model of military justice, the authors examined the genesis of approaches that existed in society and characterized its attitude to the system of military justice. They analyzed the precedent practice of the European Court of Human Rights, in the context of alleged violations of Art. 6 of the Criminal Code during the administration of justice by military courts, as well as systematized key approaches developed by the Court, which are proposed to be taken into account when restoring the system of military courts in Ukraine. In addition, the authors systematized the existing models of military justice in the world, identified correlations that, apparently, led to the rejection of military justice by some countries, provided detailed arguments about the need to restore it in Ukraine, and indicated promising directions for further scientific research in this area.