Law and order in Ottoman Iraq :|implementation of the Ottoman criminal justice system (1840-1870)

Abstract

This thesis discusses the initiation of Ottoman-reformed criminal procedures and courts into the provinces of Iraq between the 1940s and the late 1960s. It evaluates the Ottoman government’s efforts to gain monopoly over the right to dispense justice in the region within the scope of the Ottoman centralization in its distant provinces. The introduction of new legal organization and the Tanzimat criminal procedures were part of the Ottoman attempt at reassertion of authority in the region. The records from the courts of the Iraqi provinces and the correspondences between the central and the provincial governments indicate how the Ottoman state prioritize the operation of justice as a mark of a legitimate governance in Iraq. The Tanzimat government gave significance to the standardization of trials and the adjudication of the criminal cases among the people of Iraq as a way to gain their loyalty. Besides the introduction of the criminal procedures, the implementation of an effective penal policy toward alleged criminals was seen as another solution by the government to pacify the tribal population and to establish a stable social order. In addition to the Ottoman government’s judicial and penal policies, this thesis evaluates the Iraqi people’s attitude toward the Ottoman courts to understand state-society relations in a region where tribal confederations were still strong and the people unaccustomed to the Ottoman judicial system.