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Iraq
Index
The regular criminal justice system consisted of courts of
first instance (including magistrate courts), courts of sessions,
and a Court of Cassation. Major crimes against state security
were tried in the revolutionary courts, which operated separately
from the regular judicial system. In general this court system
followed the French pattern as first introduced during the rule
of the Ottoman Turks, although the system had undergone several
modifications during the twentieth century. Juries were not used
anywhere in the Iraqi criminal court system.
Most petty crimes, or contraventions, which carried penalties
of imprisonment from one day to three months or of fines up to
ID30, were tried in local magistrate courts. These third-class
courts, which were found in all local municipalities, were
presided over by municipal council members or by other local
administrative officials. First- and second-class criminal
matters, which corresponded to felonies and to misdemeanors,
respectively, were tried within appropriate penal courts attached
to civil courts of first instance, located in provincial capitals
and in district and subdistrict centers. Misdemeanors were
punishable by three months' to five years' imprisonment; felonies
by five years' to life imprisonment or by the death penalty. One
judge conducted the trials for criminal matters at each of these
courts of original jurisdiction.
In 1986 the six courts of session continued to hold
jurisdiction in the most serious criminal matters, and they acted
as courts of appeal in relation to lower penal or magistrate
courts. Four of these courts were identical to the civil courts
of appeal; two were presided over by local judges from the courts
of first instance. Three judges heard cases tried in the courts
of session.
The Court of Cassation was the state's highest court for
criminal matters. At least three judges were required to be
present in its deliberations, and in cases punishable by death,
five judges were required. The Court of Cassation also served as
the highest court of appeals, and it confirmed, reduced,
remitted, or suspended sentences from lower courts. It assumed
original jurisdiction over crimes committed by judges or by highranking government officials.
The revolutionary courts, composed of three judges, sat
permanently in Baghdad to try crimes against the security of the
state; these crimes were defined to include espionage, treason,
smuggling, and trade in narcotics. Sessions were held in camera,
and the right of defense reportedly was severely restricted. It
was also believed that regular judicial procedures did not apply
in these special courts, summary proceedings being common.
On several occasions during the 1970s--after the attempted
coups of 1970 and of 1973, after the 1977 riots in An Najaf and
in Karbala, and after the 1979 conspiracy against the regime--the
RCC decreed the establishment of special temporary tribunals to
try large numbers of security offenders en masse. Each of these
trials was presided over by three or four high government
officials who, not being bound by ordinary provisions of criminal
law, rendered swift and harsh sentences. In 1970 fifty-two of an
estimated ninety accused persons were convicted, and thirty-seven
of these were executed during three days of proceedings. It was
believed that about thirty-five had been sentenced to death and
about twenty had been acquitted, during two days of trials in
1973. In a one-day trial in 1977, eight were sentenced to death,
and fifteen were sentenced to life imprisonment; eighty-seven
persons were believed to have been acquitted. Thirty-eight Iraqis
were executed between May 24 and May 27, 1978. The majority of
them were members of the armed forces, guilty of political
activity inside the military. An additional twenty-one leading
members of the party, including ministers, trade union leaders,
and members of the RCC, were tried in camera and executed in
1979. In general, those sentenced to death were executed, either
by hanging or by firing squad, immediately after the trials.
Administered by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the
penal system was dominated by the central prison at Abu Ghurayb
near Baghdad, which housed several thousand prisoners, and by
three smaller branch prisons located in the governorates of Al
Basrah, Babylon, and Nineveh. Additional detention centers were
located throughout the country. In early 1988, it was impossible
to determine the full number of imprisonments in Iraq.
Internal security was a matter of ongoing concern for Iraq in
the late 1980s. The end of the war with Iran would presumably
bring opportunities for liberalizing the security restrictions
imposed by the Baathist regime.
* * *
English-language literature on the subject of Iraqi national
security was scarce in 1988, largely because of the government's
almost obsessive secrecy with respect to security affairs and
because of the Iran-Iraq War. Frederick W. Axelgard's Iraq in
Transition: A Political, Economic, and Strategic Perspective
was the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of the subject in
1988. Majid Khadduri's Socialist Iraq, dealing with
military and security affairs in the larger context of post-1968
political developments, continued to be indispensable. Mohammad
A. Tarbush's The Role of the Military in Politics: A Case
Study of Iraq to 1941, and Hanna Batatu's The Old Social
Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, provided
invaluable background information. The rapid growth, in both
manpower and equipment, of Iraq's armed forces was best
documented in the annual The Military Balance, published
by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Accounts by
Efraim Karsh in The Iran-Iraq War, and a series of
articles by Anthony H. Cordesman, thoroughly discussed the IranIraq War. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography).
Data as of May 1988
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