In some extraordinary circumstances the conventional legal order is not enough to maintain the social order. In anticipation that an emergency situation may happen, most national constitutions include the possibility of declaring martial law. This declaration grants extraordinary powers to the police and the armed forces so that they can administer justice and maintain public order.
As a general criterion, the cases in which it is possible to apply martial law are situations of warlike conflict or social rebellion. This possibility contemplated in the legal system is designed to face situations of extreme violence in which ordinary justice would not be useful to quell the conflict generated.
Some of its implications
As a general criterion, when martial law is imposed there is a temporary limitation or suspension of some of the rights that the legal system guarantees people. In some cases, it is contemplated that the promulgation of martial law allows very summary trials and the death penalty may even be exceptionally authorized.
One of the consequences of said law is that the judiciary ceases to be in the hands of the judges to go to the military establishment, since the one who decides what to do in these cases is a military court.
In short, it could be said that martial law supposes imposing a military system on civil life.
Other situations in which exceptional measures can be taken
From a legal point of view, a series of atypical situations are contemplated, also known as exception regimes. Martial law is the most drastic exceptional measure, since it is understood to be equivalent to a situation of war. Other equally unusual but less serious circumstances are the state of alarm, the state of emergency and the state of siege. In all of them, the government of a nation has the legitimacy to temporarily suspend some of the fundamental rights of citizens.
The state of alarm can be declared throughout the national territory or in a part of it when there is a serious alteration of life in society, such as a natural catastrophe, an epidemic or a public service strike.
The state of exception can also be declared when there is an alteration of the free exercise of the rights and freedoms of citizens and the normal functioning of public order. An example of this declaration would be in that case in which the representatives of popular sovereignty were threatened.
A state of siege can be declared when there is a popular insurrection or an act of force against the constitutional order.
Photo: Fotolia - Lucian Milasan
