Iraqi High Tribunal (Iraqi Courts 2)

{Further presentation of the words of Raïd Juhi al-Saedi.} The decision concerning the way former members of the Hussein regime and the former leader of that nation would be tried fell upon the shoulders of the Security Council. The Council disagreed about whether to try those captured under an International Criminal Tribunal such as the one held for Yugoslavian war criminals. Those disagreements made such an arrangement impossible, so the choice was made to leave the cases to an Iraqi Special Tribunal. Under Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 48 Iraq's Governing Council received the authority to found an Iraqi Special Tribunal. That Tribunal was assigned the task of trying residents of Iraq alleged to have committed crimes of the most severe nature. Genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of certain Iraqi laws were all to be tried under that Tribunal.

The Tribunal was originally independent of the judicial system under Statute Number 1 of the 2003 Governing Council. Statute Number 10 replaced that statute in 2005, which renamed the Iraqi Special Tribunal the Iraqi High Tribunal. The Iraqi constitution regards the IHT as a transitional court in a transitional period with the duty to examine the aforementioned crimes of that departed regime. That High Tribunal has jurisdiction over war crimes, genocides and crimes against humanity July 17, 1968 and May 1, 2003. Their Council of Representatives has the right to dismantle the Tribunal after the work is finished. The Iraqi High Tribunal remains independent from the Higher Juridical Council of Iraq in the areas of both finance and administration.

Judicial and prosecution committees form the IHT, and the Judicial Committee contains the Investigative Judges and the Prosecution, the Appeal Chamber and the Trial Chamber. The Appeal Chamber (quite distinct from the Cassation Courts, but equivalent to it) has eight judges and a chief judge. The Trial Chamber has four judges and a chief judge. That Chamber is very similar to the Felony Courts. The Investigative Judges (Arabic symbols not presented) are a chief judge and twenty-four investigative judges. The Prosecution has a chief and sixteen lower prosecutors. The Public Prosecution Department under the Higher Juridical Council bears a close similarity. The IHT has a separate Administrative Department.

In 2004 the High Tribunal started its work, and by the end of 2006 it had gone though a lot of the documents and evidence involved with the cases it began with. The number of cases expanded as evidence came in from different parts of their country. Additional offices had to be opened to reduce the hectic conditions in the Baghdad headquarters. Offices opened in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil for northern Iraq, Najaf to cover the central region and Basra for the southern region. The offices received the personnel and the basic necessities to carry out their tasks. Those offices and the headquarters in Baghdad interviewed thousands. The victims and complainants received the benefit of investigative resources and legal attention. The electronic database proved to be of great benefit in the investigations because of the large volume of records involved with the cases before the major charges could be presented and concluded.

The issue of utmost concern in Iraq were the mass graves in which the victims of the toppled dictator were buried. Witnesses and governmental human rights organizations helped locate many of the sites of the remains, in coordination with the United states military forces, who used modern technology to assist. More than 250 mass graves were discovered with more than 80 bodies each, displaying the sheer scale of the horror involved. The Iraqi government didn't have the resources to get to all of the grave sites because of their remote locations. The IHT and the Regimes Crimes Liaisons Office in the US Embassy in Iraq turned to international experts for assistance in the matter. A mobile laboratory was also purchased to investigate the grave sites.

Here is Saedi's conclusion:

Many experts have questioned the work of the Iraqi High Tribunal. In doing so,however, the critics neglected to analyze its work in the context of Iraq’s modern judicial history. The IHT achieved justice and helped keep peace in Iraq in the period immediately following the fall of the former regime in 2003. It represented the hopes of Iraqis for the rule of law, and contributed to the process of restoring faith and confidence in the Iraqi judicial system.

This project is complete. I have no opinions on the subject.

[Ported from Symbols.]