42 c) “A military court is a special and purely functional court designed to maintain discipline in the military and police.” As the Commission stated in its 1993 Annual Report, placing civilians under the jurisdiction of the military courts is patently contrary to the rights and guarantees protected under articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention, specifically the right to a hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law; d) Because the armed forces are performing dual roles -combating terrorism and exercising jurisdictional functions that properly pertain to the judicial branch of government-, “there are some serious and legitimate doubts about the impartiality of a military court in such cases, as the court would be both judge and prosecutor.” The conduct of the military judge of inquiry who ordered the defendants detained, attached their property and then examined the witnesses and the suspects, was a violation of the right to an impartial tribunal, since the same judge or court conducted both the preliminary inquiry and the trial; e) members of military tribunals are appointed by the military hierarchy, which means they exercise jurisdictional authority at the discretion of the executive branch. This would be understandable only when the crimes being prosecuted are military offenses. Whereas the Statute of Military Justice provides, under its preliminary title, that military tribunals are autonomous, elsewhere that same body of law stipulates that such courts are answerable to the executive branch; nowhere does it stipulate that military tribunals shall be composed of legal professionals. Article 23 of the Statute provides that the minister of the pertinent sector shall designate the members of the Supreme Court of Military Justice. In practice, military judges continue to be subordinate to their superiors and must respect the established military hierarchy. For these reasons, such tribunals do not “provide civilians with guarantees of impartiality and independence, since the military judges act according to military logic and their own principles”; f) the very concept of a tribunal previously established by law “means that judicial competence can be neither derogated nor removed; in other words, absolute adherence to the law is required and judicial competence may not be arbitrarily altered.” In the case of Peru, the nomen iuris of treason is one element used to “cloak this arbitrary mutation in the guise of legality” and to remove jurisdiction from the tribunal previously established by law to the military courts. But, “for a tribunal established by law to exist it is not sufficient that it be provided for by law; such a tribunal must also fulfill all the other requirements stipulated in Article 8 of the American Convention and elsewhere in international law;” and g) Article 15, paragraph 1 of Decree-Law No. 25,475 provides that those military who are officers of the court in cases involving crimes of terrorism shall keep their identity secret, wherefore decisions and judgments are to be unsigned. The use of “faceless” tribunals denies the accused his right to be judged by an independent and impartial tribunal, the right to defend himself and the right to due process. Trials of this type make it difficult for the accused to know whether the judge is competent and impartial. 126. Arguments of the State: