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Iraq
Criminal Justice System
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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