AFSPA: Soldiers clear, but is everyone else ?

Sir,
All soldiers (mostly) seems to suffer from one fundamental flaw in their thinking: Executive is supreme and it knows what is right and his wishes are sovereign. Once soldier is assigned the task and it is sole judge to decide the actions required to establish law and order.


Fundamentally, this is flawed.

Sovereign has no supreme power. It can not assign the soldier supreme power ( which it does not have)  outside of judicial review.


Most of the laws are to protect citizen from the arbitrary exercise of power by the executive. Unless this fundamental principle is understood,  there can not be any meaningful dialogue.
Nath
_____________________________________

• First Amendment: addresses the rights of freedom of religion (prohibiting Congress from making a law "respecting an establishment" of religion and protecting the right to free exercise of religion), freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.
• Second Amendment: guarantees the right of individuals to possess weapons. The most recent Supreme Court decision interpreting the Second Amendment is McDonald v. Chicago.
• Third Amendment: prohibits the government from using private homes as quarters for soldiers during peacetime without the consent of the owners. The only existing case law directly regarding this amendment is a decision of the Court of Appeals (the appellate level between the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Supreme Court) in the case of Engblom v. Carey.^[57] However, it is also cited in the landmark case, Griswold v. Connecticut, in support of the Supreme Court's holding that the constitution protects the right to personal privacy.
• Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. Some rights to privacy have been inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court.
• Fifth Amendment: forbids trial for a major crime except after indictment by a grand jury; prohibits double jeopardy (repeated trials), except in certain very limited circumstances; forbids punishment without due process of law; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to testify against himself (this is also known as "Taking the Fifth" or "Pleading the Fifth"). This is regarded as the "rights of the accused" amendment, otherwise known as the Miranda rights after the Supreme Court case. It also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation", the basis of eminent domain in the United States.
• Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury, guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against him. The Sixth Amendment has several court cases associated with it, including Powell v. Alabama, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Crawford v. Washington. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment prohibition on forced self-incrimination and the sixth amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.
• Seventh Amendment: assures trial by jury in civil cases.
• Eighth Amendment: forbids excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.
• Ninth Amendment: declares that the listing of individual rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not meant to be comprehensive; and that the other rights not specifically mentioned are retained by the people.
• Tenth Amendment: reserves to the states respectively, or to the people, any powers the Constitution did not delegate to the United States, nor prohibit the states from exercising.