National Lawyers Guild Submits Comments for Improving Military Justice System to Department of Defense Military Justice Review Group
For immediate release:
June 30, 2014
Tasha Moro
Communications Coordinator
212-679-5100, ext. 15
NEW YORK--The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) today submitted comments
to the Defense Department’s Military Justice Review Group as part of
its comprehensive review of the military justice system. Recommendations
to improve the system include eliminating the “convening authority” as
the near-absolute final arbiter of what constitutes justice in a given
case. The NLG also calls for eliminating criminal liability for acts
that are purely military offenses, and for clarifying the effect of a
conviction by summary court-martial.
“We are gratified that this review is taking place, as changes in
the court martial system are long overdue. We do not believe that
anything less than a complete restructuring of the way the military
handles offenses can be adequate. We have, therefore, focused on large
changes, rather than the many small details that could lead to some
incremental improvement without altering the basic inequities that lead
so many to see military justice as an oxymoron," said David Gespass, NLG
past president and one of the authors of the comments.
The NLG was the country’s first integrated national bar association and remains its largest human rights bar association. Its Military Law Task Force (MLTF)
has been defending the rights of military service members for nearly
four decades and, prior to that, it had established offices in Japan and
the Philippines to provide counsel to service members overseas. The
MLTF has relied upon this long experience to formulate its proposals to
the Military Justice Review Group. Its comments do not suggest that the
court-martial system be fine-tuned; rather, they address what we see as
fundamental problems that lead to a general perception of unfairness in
the system as a whole, irrespective of how it may operate in any
particular case.
The National Lawyers Guild believes there are two fundamental
difficulties with the military criminal system as it now exists, both
premised on the false belief that they are needed to maintain
discipline. Notably, at the same time as defenders of the system assert
the need for such discipline, they proclaim the US military as the best,
most professional in history. In particular, if the men and women in
uniform today are so overwhelmingly professional, well-educated and
patriotic, we can be reasonably certain that they will overwhelmingly be
sufficiently disciplined so as not to endanger the strength of the
force.
The NLG believes these recommendations along with clarification
regarding summary court-martial convictions would greatly improve the
military justice system.
To view the comments, click here.
The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937 as the nation’s
first racially integrated bar association to advocate for the protection
of constitutional, human and civil rights.
# # #
Tags
the national lawyers guild
