Baghdad ? All rise as three judges, cloaked in black robes with a white fringe, take their seats behind a wooden bench facing prosecutors, defense lawyers and the accused, standing unshackled in a wooden pen.

It’s a scene that some American soldiers and contractors may someday face under a draft new security agreement, which gives Iraqis first crack at prosecuting them for “premeditated and gross felonies” committed off base and off duty.

Americans charged with such offenses would face proceedings where there’s no jury, rules of evidence are a work in progress and the judges often render verdicts and impose sentences in the same session.

Critics complain the system is overwhelmed by thousands of cases, inexperienced judges and corruption – much of it petty payoffs to clerks to make sure the defendants get a speedy court date.

During a recent hearing in a sprawling, tan-colored court complex that opened last year, a harried woman stenographer scribbled notes by hand as the chief judge summarized a witness’ testimony. Her notes – and not a word-for-word transcript – form the record of the trial.

The session was postponed after a few minutes because the defense lawyers complained they didn’t have time to read the case file. To do that, they must come to the court complex in eastern Baghdad and negotiate a web of checkpoints and blast walls to see the evidence.

The legal system, based on continental European and Arab models, is basically the same that operated through Saddam Hussein’s rule, although Iraqi judges and lawyers insist it is no longer subject to the same level of government interference.

“The problem in the Iraqi courts is that it has a certain level of integrity but this integrity is not absolute,” said lawyer Rabia Ibrahim.

On paper, the judicial system guarantees the rights of the accused and is independent of outside interference. The Iraqi constitution states that the right to a legal defense is “sacred and guaranteed.”

Instead of a jury, three judges decide whether the accused committed the crime and impose the sentence – usually in the same session as they announce the verdict.

Trials are aimed at uncovering the truth, and the judges’ instincts count nearly as much as the legal arguments presented by both sides.

Judges, and not the lawyers, ask the witnesses and defendants most of the questions and are not bound by the same restrictions of rules of evidence and precedents as their counterparts in the United States.

That places a huge responsibility on the judges, many of whom lack training and experience because they joined the bench only after the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003.