Military courts in Lebanon

By: Viktoriya Malikova, Associate Editor

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/lebanons-protesters-arrested-civilian-rallies-tried-military-courts-995284779
http://www.dawn.com/news/1307715
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/26/lebanon-civilians-tried-military-courts

In his book, Huntington emphasizes importance of objective civilian control of the military, claiming that military is professional in management of violence, but not in the management of the state. So, the military may have a right to make certain decisions concerning army or, at least argue, that those decisions are indeed necessary and would be useful for society. But in any case it should not interfere in the politics. This balance, however, is difficult to achieve as the demands and suggestions of military often intersect with the other policies of the state. It was also highlighted by Posen in his discussion of the military doctrine, that grand strategy is about survival of the state and it covers military, social and economic aspects. However, drawing borders among these aspects can be very difficult. For example, during distribution of the budget it may be challenging to find a balanced way of distributing budgets among social care, investments into economics and satisfaction of military needs as each sector would consider itself to be the most important and will demand a bigger share.
Thus, the civilian control is not easy as it demands finding balance for many factors. However, one example of why the civilian control is so necessary and important can be Lebanon case, where the military courts were given a right to try the civilians who are suspected in terrorism or other type of threat to the state (participation in protests, for example). Military courts, trying military people is fitting into Huntington theory of objective control.  However, when the military officers start to determine sentence of civilians, it is a clear example of violation of the civilian control. This is a case of military interfering into the politics and of a sharp increase in political power of the military.
The example of Lebanon shows that this expansion of military power leads to multiple abuses of human rights, such as use of torture during the interrogations. The law allows even children being sent to the military court. It results in vagueness and blurring the line between the cases that are under the management of the civilian courts and the cases under the management of the military. So, potentially, any suspect may be sent to the military court. Moreover, these trials are conducted behind the closed door, so there is not even a hint at transparency in this situation. Due to all this, the idea of military courts trying civilians rose high international condemnation, in particular of the Human Rights Watch organization.
This initiative at the beginning was put into practice for the period of two years and this period has expired in the January this year. The main political parties now debate with the government and argue in favor for taking away the right to try civilians from the military courts.
This case is an example of how the military control can be dangerous. The protection of state sometimes needs drastic measures. This solution of Lebanon’s government two years ago to allow military court try civilians was aimed at providing more security. At that time there was a serious threat of terrorism as it was right after the terrorist attack in 2015. However, the experience shows that decrease of the civilian control undermines protection of human rights and leads to abuse of power by military.

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References:

Huntington, S. (1957). The soldier and the state (1st ed.). Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Posen, Barry R. 1986. Chapter I In The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars. Cornell University Press.

The Turkish path to One-man Rule

Akbota Karibayeva

A week of parliamentary debates on the controversial bill that would implement serious constitutional changes to the political system of Turkey has finished on January 16 by the two-third majority vote in favor. The popular referendum is now to decide whether the position of prime minister in the Turkish government is to be abolished, the president’s power is to be increased, and the independence of judicial branch - undermined.

While the future of the Turkish state is (hopefully) in the hands of Turkish people, the way president Erdogan has played the post-coup situation to his own benefit is worth noting. The attempted military coup that took place in mid-July 2016 resulted in intensification of the sense of crisis and people’s need in ensuring the strong government. Reinforced by the terrorist attacks, the coup facilitated people’s unification and greater endorsement of the Erdogan’s regime. This, in turn, unleashed a justified abuse human rights in pursuit of restoration of stability.

Yet, Erdogan did not limit himself by a witch-hunt on the suspected organizers of the coup. He went further and made use of the political opportunity to cement his position by proposing a bill that would have hardly played out previously. Now, when the public supports him as never before and a good number of pro-Kurdish opposition (HDP) MPs is imprisoned for indirect association with Fethullah Gulen, Erdogan is one step away from declaring a one-man rule in Turkey. Accusing the current judiciary in falling under the influence of Gulen - the coup organizer according to the Turkish government - Erdogan made a good case for justifying the extension of president’s powers to directly intervene in the judiciary. The proposed changes are intended to elevate the Turkish political system to the level of that in France and the US. Indeed, I would agree, “efficient government”, as Erdogan sells it, is urgently needed in Turkey. But it does not have to be a dictatorship.

Was the coup organized by Gulen, as the government claims, or it was all staged by Erdogan’s regime? We don't know. What we do know, though, is that Erdogan has clearly played this card very well for himself.

This case demonstrates that, indeed, military insecurity causes a paradoxical reaction chain, just like Porter has described in his “War and the Rise of the State” (1994). On the one hand, the attempted coup mobilized the Turkish people from different party backgrounds to go out and protest against the putschists. On the other hand, the people, even having learned from the Amnesty International about the terrible extensive human rights abuses by the government, did not start doubting the regime’s authority. This way, the sense of military emergency caused a flash of democratic mobilization that not-yet-but-almost resulted in a more dictatorial regime.