Baghdad, Iraq
JUST ACROSS THE Tigris from the Green Zone, the surge has established what may be its most important non-military beachhead: the Rule of Law Complex (ROLC). Based in Baghdad’s Rusafa District, the traditional home of the Baghdad Police, the ROLC brings together the three legs of the criminal justice stool: courts, police, and corrections.
Inside a heavily fortified compound not far from Sadr City, the ROLC houses a branch of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), the Baghdad Police College, and a detention facility for 5,000 detainees (soon to be expanded to 7,000), as well as secure accommodations for key judicial personnel and their families.
The project has moved quickly from PowerPoint slides in February to the start of operations in April and its first trial in June, all of which required significant cooperation among the Ministries of Interior, Justice, and Finance, as well as the Higher Judicial Council. Last month the Iraqi government approved $49 million for the effort and, as of August 1, ROLC’s full operating budget–including security expenses–comes out of state funds.
What Coalition forces have provided, meanwhile–in addition to advice on the ROLC’s design, construction, and implementation–is the Law and Order Task Force (LAOTF). LAOTF is a key part of Multi-National Force-Iraq’s (MNFI) renewed emphasis on building up the rule of law and combines the expertise of attorneys and investigators, both military and civilian.
Since 2004, 31 Iraqi judges have been assassinated, and there have been untold numbers of attacks on witnesses, defense counsel, and other court participants. The ROLC houses 12 judges, and members of the LAOTF, referred to around here as “Laotians,” are free to work with their Iraqi counterparts to investigate and prepare cases for hearing and trial without fear and intimidation. LAOTF and the ROLC thus create conditions in which judges, counsel, and witnesses can be assured of their own security and can perform their duty without regard to sect, region, or tribe.
This effort is important because establishing law and order is a vital component of both counterinsurgency and post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction. For a nation to prosper, the people must be able to live without fear, trust the basic institutions of government, and feel secure that the rules under which they conduct their lives today will be there tomorrow. A counterinsurgency cannot win anywhere until individuals are held accountable in legitimate courts of law and then, if found guilty and sentenced to confinement, held in humane conditions.
Under Iraqi law, an investigative judge (IJ) interviews witnesses and reviews evidence before sending his factual findings and recommendations to a three-judge trial panel. IJs in turn rely on judicial investigators (JIs) and police investigators (PIs) to investigate cases and prepare case files for them. LAOTF assists with these functions and, more importantly, trains new JIs and PIs. Just last week an additional 26 PIs graduated from an FBI course, bringing the ROLC total to 30 just as LAOTF reaches its expected high of about 70 Coalition personnel.
As of early August, ROLC judges had received over 2,000 cases, completed more than 700 investigations, and conducted more than 60 full trials. Importantly, after scrutinizing the evidence, they had dismissed over 325 cases. Still, the number of detainees grows daily, and plans are in the works to train increasing numbers of IJs–the greatest bottleneck in the system.
Among the first ROLC defendants was Syrian militant Ramzi Ahmad Isma’il Muhammad, aka Abu Qatada. Tried for kidnapping, killing hostages, and other terrorist offenses, Abu Qatada was convicted in open court–by a panel composed of two Shiites and a Sunni–and sentenced to death.
Perhaps the Coalition’s most important contribution to advancing the rule of law in the criminal justice context is to teach and emphasize evidence-based investigations in a system that has, in the past, relied heavily on confessions. In one trial last month, for example, the ROLC panel acquitted four murder defendants on the grounds that their confessions appeared coerced. (In an absence of physical evidence, medical reports pointed to possible torture.) The stunned defendants received the verdict with palpable relief, as seen on a video recording of the trial.
A more demanding test of the system’s effectiveness and impartiality will come soon when a Shiite National Policeman is tried on charges that he assaulted and tortured dozens of Sunni detainees on behalf of a Shiite militia.
By March, the small courtroom where Abu Qatada was tried will be replaced by an $11 million court built with American reconstruction funds. Col. Mark Martins, MNFI’s staff judge advocate, estimates that once the new court is built, ROLC will be able to handle about a third of the combined CCCI’s 5,000-trial annual caseload.
Despite ROLC’s well-deserved reputation as a protected forum for trying the most dangerous terrorists and criminals, the complex still suffers from the same problems as the rest of Iraq’s legal system–and has, to some extent, become a victim of its own success. As truckloads of pre-trial arrestees from U.S. and Iraqi surge operations overwhelm detention facilities nationwide, prisoners from over-crowded jails have been transported to Rusafa. After initial resistance, an agreement was reached granting ROLC judges jurisdiction over these non-Rusafa detainees.
The ROLC digitally finger-prints and retina-scans each detainee, but bad record keeping–up to 80 percent of detainees arrive without a file–often prevents timely processing. While the ROLC jail meets international standards (such as 25 square feet per detainee), even its expanded facility will quickly reach maximum capacity. As more and more detainees are captured, their cases must be both documented and processed faster. If the system fails to keep up, it risks losing legitimacy as terrorists are released for lack of evidence and innocents languish for lack of hearing.
Ultimately, the Iraqis have to want the rule of law, or it will fall apart even if al Qaeda and the other extremists are decisively put down. That means the man on the street has to want proper treatment of detainees, with quick initial hearings, and real tracking from arrest to conviction–or release where appropriate. The alternative is an endless cycle of violent retribution and other extra-legal solutions.
Even more, though, it means the people in charge have to want a non-sectarian and transparent justice system–and they must be willing to make political sacrifices to get there. There is great pressure on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government to address these issues of elite “buy-in,” and the hope is that this type of leadership will trickle down as it has in the formerly lawless Anbar province, where another ROLC is planned for the provincial capital of Ramadi.
But the rule of law does not yet prevail here, and progress toward lasting reconciliation will require the government and the people to reject extra-legal means to achieve political ends. It is not an exciting process, or one given to easily measured benchmarks, or one that is advanced merely with well-written laws and policies. It will require institutions, facilities, people, time, and money.
But with the ROLC, Iraq has made a good step in that direction.
Ilya Shapiro, the incoming senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, is currently a Special Assistant/Advisor to the Multi-National Force-Iraq’s (MNFI) Law and Order Task Force (LAOTF). He writes the “Dispatches from Purple America” column for TCSDaily.com and a blog of the same name. The opinions expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of any institution with which he is affiliated.
