VI. Delays in Hearings

The failure to provide judicial hearings within a reasonable period of time stood out among the procedural failings Human Rights Watch observed during its attendance at investigative hearings and from interviews with detainees referred for trial to the CCCI. A majority of detainees had been held for months, and in some cases years, before referral to a judge.

The delays are, in some measure, the result of the dramatic growth in the Iraqi detainee population during the implementation of the Baghdad Security Plan in 2007 (see Chapter IV, above). Over the course of the year, the investigative division of the Karkh branch of the court handled a total of 32,084 cases, referring 7,447 for trial and dismissing 17,820; of cases referred for trial, 2,875 were concluded during the year.[95] A staff of 10 trial judges, 25 investigative judges, and 15 judicial investigators is responsible for handling this caseload.[96]

The delays also reflect failures of procedure prior to handling at the CCCI. In certain instances, investigative judges dealt with those failures-including lack of counsel at previous investigative hearings, and allegations of coerced confession-by dismissing cases. In one set of hearings that Human Rights Watch attended, an investigative judge ordered the release of 11 detainees rounded up during mass arrests carried out by an Iraqi army unit in Mahmoudiyya and accused of belonging to the Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militia linked with the movement headed by Moqtada al-Sadr. These detainees, who testified they had been in custody for periods ranging from 30 days to five months, had never been referred to an investigative judge. Nor were arrest warrants, physical evidence, or summaries of testimony by informants included in their case files. None had had access to counsel.[97]

In a separate investigative hearing, a defendant detained by the Iraqi army in July 2007 and accused of membership in an Islamist group was released after he testified that he had received only a single investigative hearing, without counsel, after his arrest.[98]

In other instances, judges acknowledged grave procedural errors by starting the process anew, with further hearings and further prolonged detention. A defendant at the Rusafa branch of the court told Human Rights Watch he had been detained in January 2006 during a raid by Interior Ministry commandos and held since then in Baghdad's transfer prison. That defendant, who previously had an investigative hearing some months after his initial detention, without counsel, on charges of theft and murder, this time received a hearing with counsel present. The judge referred his case for further investigation.[99]