From Iraq the Model, Mohammed updates us on week two of the new security operation for Baghdad. One development I think especially promising is the involvement of the nascent Iraqi judiciary. A functioning democratic civil society needs an effective, independent judiciary, and it looks like Iraq's is beginning to assert itself:
...it's worth mentioning that the judiciary is already trying to provide the required legal component to the operation, al-Mada reports:
The supreme judicial council assigned nine judges, nine representatives of the general prosecutor and fifteen magistrates the task of visiting designated detention facilities to interrogate suspects. The source added that the council demanded that the interior and defense ministries commit to show detainees before a magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest…when the magistrate orders keeping the detainee in custody no other authority has the right to release him, and when the magistrate orders releasing the detainee through paying a bail no other authority shall continue his detention, unless the detainee is wanted for other charges.
If the independent judiciary can claim successfully a role for itself in the security process, and if it operates in a fair manner to both protect innocent Iraqis and respects the rights of people brought before it under the law, then this will help increase the people's faith in the government (which was almost shot, frankly) and make them less likely to turn to the militias for protection.
It's early days yet, but I call this hopeful.
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