6 iii) the first stage of said process, that included the establishment of twenty-seven principles setting forth the action framework that all modifications to military criminal justice – introduced pursuant to international standards- had to respect, has already been completed. The first six principles incorporate International Humanitarian Law rules and the following five principles establish the organic structure of the military criminal jurisdiction system, incorporating military courts into the Judicial Power of the State. The CERJM agreed to apply rules of regular criminal proceedings to military criminal courts, taking into account the particular and specific nature of the military. Principles twelve to twenty refer to different guarantees of due process: public, oral and previous proceedings, in which documents or background information which, due to their seriousness, may affect the defense of national security, are kept secret and confidential; prohibition against multiple criminal prosecution; presumption of innocence; prohibition against compelling a person to be a witness against himself/herself and right to remain silent; legality of measures depriving a person of or limiting his/her freedom; the in dubio pro reo principle; the habeas corpus guarantee, and the independence of military courts. Principles twentyone to twenty-six establish the formal and material safeguards to be taken into account in the definition and application of conduct considered criminal by the military, such as the nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege praevia principle, the freedom from ex post facto military criminal laws principle, the injuriousness principle, the principle of proportionality between sentence and guilt, and the prohibition against analogy. It pointed out that the CERJM has established that ‘military courts, in light of their special jurisdiction, have authority to hear cases involving military crimes committed by military personnel’, and that ‘only under certain circumstances that are extremely grave and particularly sensitive in relation to the maintenance of order, hierarchy and discipline, will these courts have jurisdiction to hear cases concerning certain ordinary crimes […] in times of war or crisis”; iv) likewise, work has been done to prepare a draft reform bill intended to amend applicable military law, readapting criminal and criminal procedural rules and the organic institutional design, as well as that of the operators of the system. Among other changes, the bill includes a list of definitions that modify concepts like ‘times of war’, excluding the notion of ‘domestic security” from its meaning and it eliminates expressions such as 'state of siege', which made it possible to classify situations of domestic commotion as war. Likewise, it includes more accurate definitions of concepts like 'order', thus clarifying a fundamental notion for Military Criminal Law and prohibiting compliance with any command that outrages personal dignity or whose compliance may entail committing a crime. The bill also puts forward the abolition of capital punishment and the establishment of aggravated life imprisonment in a military prison as the maximum applicable sentence for committing a military crime. The proposed classification of military crimes involves four categories: insubordination crimes, including rioting, disobedience or insulting seniors; war duty crimes, which presuppose the occurrence of the conduct in times of war; crimes concerning senior officers' duties, including usurpation or dishonoring juniors; and crimes related to the duty to provide military service. Regarding the crimes, it added that “[a]ll definitions identify a specific perpetrator –the military person-, so that there exists no ambiguity as to [who] must comply with these criminally protected duties;”

Select target paragraph3