On June 12, 2013, Senator Gillibrand spoke in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee in support of the Military Justice Improvement Act.
Transcript:
want to address why I think this is
insufficientthere seems to be a misunderstanding
that the commanders are not taking the
judgments of their Jag they are in fact
they only disagree with their Jag one
percent of the time less than one
percent it’s very rare when commanders
are disagreeing with their Jag that’s
not our problem so all this transparency
and review is excellent but it’s not
solving a given problem that is not a
problem we have today
the problem is very clear because the
victims have told us what it is and I’m
just distressed that the victim’s voices
aren’t being heard in this debate not
nearly enough the victims say it is the
climate that they fear retaliation their
commanders are not creating a climate
where they fear they can report withou
being blamed being retaliated against
being marginalized having their careers be over
that is the Commander’s responsibility
if they are creating a climate of fear
and there is retaliation within their
ranks they are not maintained in good
order and discipline the victims tell us
they do not report because of chain of
command so I disagree with the
statements today and previously that the
chain of command at the disposition
phase is the problem it’s not that
they’re decisions wrong it’s that they
are the decider and the victims have
said I’m not reporting because it’s
within the chain of command and for the
Jag lawyers that are making these
recommendations those Jag lawyers are in
the chain of command it would be like my
general counsel making a recommendation
to me it’s entirely within the chain of
command the reason why our bill is
different is it’s asking a set of Jag
lawyers who do not report to the chain
of command to make these decisions
independently so that the victims canperceive
that is not within the chain that the
decision was made because if you look at
the victim’s descriptions of what
happens to them their assailant is
usually someone’s senior to them someone
up the chain someone senior more
decorated Purple Heart recipient someone
who have done great acts of bravery and
they see that the chain of command will
not be objective there’s no objectivity
in the decision that’s being made about
whether or not to prosecute it’s not
that the commander is disagreeing with
his lawyerit’s that the victim fears retaliation
we look at our allies the Allies we
fight with every time we need an ally in
war look at Israel look at the UK look
at Canada look at Germany
look at Australia they’ve made
this decision already because of the
objectivity problem and because of
reporting issues in fact in Israel
because they’ve done some high-level
prosecutions in the last five years
they’re reporting has increased by 80 percent
what would that mean if our reporting
increased by 80 percent it would mean
we wouldn’t have 300 reported cases
we’d have tens of thousands of reported
cases and if that many are reported how
many are going to go to trial
a lot more than 300 even with an
aggressive Commander you might get more
but a lot more are going to trial if you
increase reporting so to increase
reporting let’s just listen to the
victims they say it’s in the chain of
command that’s why they’re not reporting
so we can believe them
or we cannot believe them
many here don’t believe the victims they don’t
believe the victims they don’t believe
China commands the problem
Jennifer and Lee 