44 duties, and then only under certain circumstances. This was the definition in Peru’s own law (Article 282 of the 1979 Constitution). Transferring jurisdiction from civilian courts to military courts, thus allowing military courts to try civilians accused of treason, means that the competent, independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law is precluded from hearing these cases. In effect, military tribunals are not the tribunals previously established by law for civilians. Having no military functions or duties, civilians cannot engage in behaviors that violate military duties. When a military court takes jurisdiction over a matter that regular courts should hear, the individual’s right to a hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law and, a fortiori, his right to due process are violated. That right to due process, in turn, is intimately linked to the very right of access to the courts. 129. A basic principle of the independence of the judiciary is that every person has the right to be heard by regular courts, following procedures previously established by law. States are not to create “[t]ribunals that do not use the duly established procedures of the legal process […] to displace the jurisdiction belonging to the ordinary courts or judicial tribunals.”91 130. Under Article 8(1) of the American Convention, a presiding judge must be competent, independent and impartial. In the case under study, the armed forces, fully engaged in the counter-insurgency struggle, are also prosecuting persons associated with insurgency groups. This considerably weakens the impartiality that every judge must have. Moreover, under the Statute of Military Justice, members of the Supreme Court of Military Justice, the highest body in the military judiciary, are appointed by the minister of the pertinent sector. Members of the Supreme Court of Military Justice also decide who among their subordinates will be promoted and what incentives will be offered to whom; they also assign functions. This alone is enough to call the independence of the military judges into serious question. 131. This Court has held that the guarantees to which every person brought to trial is entitled must be not only essential but also judicial. “Implicit in this conception is the active involvement of an independent and impartial judicial body having the power to pass on the lawfulness of measures adopted in a state of emergency.”92 132. In the instant case, the Court considers that the military tribunals that tried the alleged victims for the crimes of treason did not meet the requirements implicit in the guarantees of independence and impartiality that Article 8(1) of the American Convention recognizes as essentials of due process of law. 133. What is more, because judges who preside over the treason trials are “faceless,” defendants have no way of knowing the identity of their judge and, therefore, of assessing their competence. Compounding the problem is the fact that the law does not allow these judges to recuse themselves. 91. Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, adopted by the Seventh United Nations Conference on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, held in Milan August 26 to September 6, 1985, and confirmed by the General Assembly in its resolutions 40/32 of 29 November 1985 and 40/146 of 13 December 1985. 92. Habeas corpus in emergency situations (Arts. 27(2), 25(1) and 7(6) American Convention on Human Rights), supra note 86, para. 30 and Judicial guarantees in states of emergency (Arts. 27(2), 25 and 8 American Convention on Human Rights), supra note 86, para. 20.