Why do military personal have to follow a different set of laws (UCMJ) than everyone else?
In: Other
Because their specific skillset and mental conditioning which is geared towards extreme violence sets them apart and makes them react differently to situations from civilans. Civilian courts and civil law are not set up or prepared to deal with such exceptions. Another thing is that military orders can be in direct violation of civil law, paralyzing military organizations and actions if they would have to abide by those.
The UCMJ is meant to capture situations that are particularly unique to the military. Its not meant to be a different set of laws for the military, its meant to be that non-military people are not subject to the type of situations a military person is, and so should not have these rules apply to them.
The military is in a unique position but the idea of different rules is not unique to the military. Go work in any large organization – they have different employee rules, code of conduct requirements etc etc. These are imposed and voluntarily adopted (to a certain extent) by anyone who chooses to join that organization. For example, if you join a church/religion – you accept the rules/faith of that religion and agree to abide by them (as best you can).
The military is simply quite unique in the size, scope and nature of it’s responsibilities. A normal organization cannot abrogate government laws. But the military is exempted from this because it derives it’s authority from the government and therefore the government can and has allowed it to impose different set of laws.
Some of this is simply the nature of armed forces (the need to respond or act with force, military discipline, acting outside of national borders, the need to act or compel action that necessarily and knowingly puts lives at risk, incarceration without due process etc etc) None of these would be allowed under civilian law.
Latest Answers