Granted, military life is not the same as civilian life when it comes to the exercise of some individual privileges and rights. But one would expect that when it comes to rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court, what holds for one sphere would hold for the other.

Such is often not the case with respect to public knowledge of and participation in judicial trials. The First Amendment of the Constitution and the highest court say the public and the press have a right to know about such proceedings. And the Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to a public trial. In civilian life, schedules — called dockets — of hearings and trials are routinely released to the public. A reporter, or any citizen, can find them posted in hard copy in court facilities, or online. In the military, by contrast, you can be sure that those rights are being subverted every day somewhere in the U.S. military universe. That’s because commands can make it extremely difficult if not impossible for the press and citizens to learn what hearings and trials are held when, for whom and why.

Reporters covering the military have known this forever. Stars and Stripes reporters have been especially aware of the problem. Cases of servicemembers facing Article 32 (akin to grand jury) hearings or courts-martial are an everyday concern of theirs. Now a journalists’ advocacy group, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), and academics from the Tully Free Speech Center at Syracuse University, have collaborated on a formal study showing just how tight-lipped the military can be.

In a survey of 75 bases worldwide, they found that 45 percent refused to provide information on scheduled Article 32 hearings, and 37 percent declined to disclose any schedule of courts-martial. More than one-third of those bases that did agree to provide docketing information "still withheld basic details such as the defendant’s name or the criminal charge," a report by the group said.

Over the years, Stripes reporters have echoed those findings. One problem is that information can be sought only through public affairs offices, which in turn have to get it from the legal authorities. These entities sometimes are generous with the information and sometimes not. Another problem is that in most of the services, the information is considered releasable to the public and media, but only after inquiry about a specific case. Obviously, if the reporter doesn’t know that a particular case is coming up for hearings, he or she can’t "inquire" about it. That is tantamount to keeping the proceedings secret.

Practices do vary widely within and among the services. At Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, for instance, the public affairs office distributes an advisory on upcoming courts-martial, with basic information about the defendants, charges and sentencing possibilities upon conviction. On the same island, the Marines do it differently. In the past they e-mailed dockets to the Stars and Stripes office and other parties, and posted them on the door of the judge’s chambers. For several years these basic practices have been curtailed by the Okinawa Marines and the information given out only in response to a reporter’s query, often with important details lacking.

The reporters’ committee has asked for a rewriting of regulations and mandates from the Defense Department in order to establish universal, online posting of dockets for all the services. The Army has begun doing this, though much of the information is bare bones, with reporters having to follow up for full names and details of charges. If not perfect, the dockets are at least useful, Sam Amrhein, Stripes’ Europe bureau chief, says.

The other services haven’t matched the Army’s practice. I heard as early at 2001 that the Air Force was considering such an automated system. But last week its public affairs office told me that there were "no immediate plans" for operating a publicly available listing of upcoming Article 32 hearings and courts-martial.

The Navy does automatically post dockets for bases in the continental United States and Hawaii, but not those overseas. It claims that host-nation sensibilities, as well as privacy and security concerns, dictate that local commands decide how to release the information. The Navy’s own regulations governing release of hearing information after charges are preferred make no mention of such considerations.

Other reasons are given for withholding dockets. One you hear is that charges may be dropped before a suspect gets to an Article 32 hearing or a court-martial. I would turn that argument around: Release of the schedules would inhibit any tendency to place groundless charges against individuals.

And that goes to heart of the issue: the scrutiny needed to assure that the legal system functions properly and to assure that a defendant receives a public and fair trial. As a "white paper" issued last month by the reporters’ committee states, the U.S. Supreme Court has found that the public’s qualified right to attend criminal trials "derives from centuries of American and English legal history, going back to before the Norman conquest, through the British colonization of America and into the formative years of the United States."

Beyond the functioning of the legal system and the rights of a defendant, another concern is the knowledge a community obtains by learning what crimes have been committed in its midst. Citizens are kept in the dark by the way docket information is handled in many military locations now.

The key recommendation of the reporters’ group is that military courts establish "standardized scheduling dockets that are available to the general public on the Internet, through a hyperlink that is salient and easily recognizable on each installation’s Web site." The information should include details as to the conduct of the hearings, the names of individuals and the charges they face.

Administrative actions within the Department of Defense are seen as the best way to bring this about. Appealing to Congress to help legislatively is also a possibility. Either way, a broken system should be fixed.