Structure of the military judiciary in the Habsburg monarchy with an emphasis on Dalmatia in 1848-1867

Abstract

General observation about the military structure of the Habsburg Monarchy is that the military judiciary was a basis that enabled the functioning of the entire military apparatus of the Monarchy. In the middle of the 19"1 century (with significant changes both in military and in civil judiciary) so called mobile courts that moved together with their units were established in order to achieve bettcT efficiency of the military judiciary. To improve the work of courts, the entire military judiciary of the Monarchy was organised and divided into three basic court types: a) garrison courts as the courts of the first instance (regimental courts); b) regional military courts and military courts of appeal as the appellate courts (county courts); c) supreme military court (in the Headquarters in Vienna) as the highest judiciary instance. A steady strategic and legal foundation for the functioning of military defence mechanism of the Habsburg Monarchy was established with such distribution of courts and with some changes of military legislation. According to the Monarchy laws military courts sometimes may have had a jurisdiction over certain seemingly civilian cases. However, final separation of civilian (civil) and military courts occurred only in 1867 with the Austro-Hungarian Agreement, while the major reformation of military judiciary happened as lute as 1889.