WASHINGTON, D.C. (Federal News Network) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has launched a sweeping review of the military legal system, directing the Pentagon to evaluate legal programs across the services, compare them with one another and benchmark them against the Justice Department and criminal justice systems.
In a May 8 memo to service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs staff and legal offices across the Defense Department, Hegseth instructed the Pentagon’s general counsel to convene a special review panel that will conduct what he described as an “ongoing, long-term, departmentwide review of all aspects of the military legal system as it affects our warriors.”
The panel is expected to issue interim reports and recommendations over time rather than produce a single final study. Hegseth said the effort is intended to “cut unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthen training and organization and make military legal professionals more effective.”
Military lawyers say periodic review of the military legal system is always a good thing — prior reviews such as the Military Justice Review Group, which conducted a comprehensive review of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault, which was set up to address sexual harassment and assault across the force — produced real improvements.
The question is not whether to review the system — the military legal system faces a number of challenges, including yearslong backlogs, inconsistent policies across the services and chronic staffing shortages — but how that review is structured.
“There’s a lot of areas in the military legal system that need reform,” Ira Rushing, an associate at the Tully Rinckey law firm, told Federal News Network. “I would have some reservations about having the panel structured and convened by DoD general counsel, which is a bureaucratic position, so a bureaucrat making suggestions on how to reduce bureaucracy. I think throughout the history of time that has never been a very good idea. But again the difference between this being an executive branch panel versus a legislative branch panel is its ability to actually effectuate any change to begin with.”
“It can put out things that Secretary Hegseth has authority to change as the secretary of defense, but they can’t change statutes, they can’t change the UCMJ. They can’t have much input on the National Defense Authorization Act. Every year is going to be limited. So it’s almost a good idea, because we want there to be a review. I just don’t know what it’s going to do,” he added.
The review comes just months after Hegseth launched what he called a “ruthless” review of how the military’s legal offices are organized, saying Pentagon legal shops should be measured against one standard: whether they make the military more lethal. Rushing said this panel’s recommendations will be judged by whether it ultimately strengthens or weakens the independence of military lawyers.
“That would be really scary to me as a JAG if I can’t render independent legal advice to a commander without worrying about how that’s going to affect my career. Obviously the advice I would give would be the advice that’s not going to jam up my career because the commander doesn’t like it,” Rushing said.
In addition, Hegseth’s promise to “cut bureaucracy” can mean very a number of things — some bureaucratic layers are essential to protecting service members and victims, such as mandatory legal reviews. Hegseth’s goal to “strengthen training” is also unclear. “We get good training that is available to us in the JAG Corps,” Rushing said.
