“Democracy is not enough; we need to control democracy by the law,” said Juhi Hamadi Al-Saíedi, former chief investigative judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal. “There is a weak line between democracy and random [behavior], but the law is the border between them. Even when we’re talking about a traffic light … Each person should respect the law if they [would] like to succeed.”
This summer, Al-Saíedi came to Ithaca from Iraq as the Law School’s first Clarke Middle East Fellow after investigating cases against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Tribunal is responsible for prosecuting acts of crimes against humanity, such as genocide, that were committed in Iraq between 1968 and 2003.