"stop running their own courts"

Iraq will disarm the Mehdi Army militia by force if it does not lay down its weapons, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday, aiming some of his toughest language yet at the Shi'ite fighters. The prime minister laid down four conditions -- that militia disarm, stop interfering in state affairs, stop running their own courts and hand over wanted fugitives -- or face a military assault. "To refuse these conditions means the continuation of the government's efforts to disarm them by force," Maliki said at a news conference inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone government and diplomatic compound. There is no alternative to these conditions. The alternative is the continuation of force and clashes until we reach the end, to get rid of the weapons and the gangs who are carrying weapons."

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Unless poor M. al-Málikí is completely out of touch or lying, that must mean that the Sadr Tendency have been running a non-occupied judicial system all along. I've always assumed that they were, but between a little bit in 2003 and 2004 and now this, evidence to point to has been nonexistent.

If Reuters and the rest were charged with not reporting about it, though, they would probably come back with "Didn’t you read our stories about all those vigilante actions against underdressed ladies and purveyors of alcohol and pornography?" Certainly, but those stories sounded like observations of a mob of kangaroos rather than taking notice of a centuries old tradition of jurisprudence and Rulalaw highly praised by Mr. Feldman of Harvard.

Since the courts rate separate mention, the Hannibal of Da&wa must have meant something different by "stop interfering in state affairs." Is he complaining that the criminal militia members deliver letters and pick up trash? That some of them have the insolence to pretend to be parliamentary deputies? Or what?