Legal perspectives on the growing militarization of domestic security and policing

In the past two decades, there have been trends concerning the domestic role of the military, including police-military collaboration as well as the mobilization of armed forces. According to the author, this raises the prospect of conflicts. Moreover, military powers such as the use of lethal force may endanger fundamental civil and democratic rights and they may collide with civil policing powers. While using examples from different jurisdictions, the author observes that under the guise of combatting terrorism, organized crime or refugee influxes, troops have been deployed in public areas in contemporary democratic countries. Moreover, there is an underlying turn in Western countries, toward establishing greater powers to deploy the armed forces for domestic and political purposes. The author reaches a stark conclusion, namely that '(G)enuine democracy is impossible, and freedom of political opinion and communication a chimera, unless members of society are free from the fear of mobilization of the armed forces against dissent and discontent.'