on others committing crimes are
themselves liable.

Military courts are selected by the People's Assembly or by its
Presidium when it is not in session. Members are military personnel and
ordinarily serve on a court for three years. Each court has a chairman,
vice chairman, and a number of members called assistant judges. The
chairman and at least one of the assistant judges must be military
superiors of the defendant.

In exceptional circumstances the People's Assembly may appoint a special
court for a particular case or a group of cases. A special court may be
all or only partially military. Such a court was appointed, for example,
when Vice Admiral Teme Seyko, commander of the naval forces, was accused
in 1961 of "having been in league with the imperialist Americans, Greek
monarcho-fascists and Yugoslav revisionists." The admiral was executed.

When crimes are committed during military operations, sentences are
heavier than when the same offenses are committed under conditions where
duress is not a factor. During combat or wartime circumstances,
legislative acts call for the most severe penalties.

THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

According to official government pronouncements relating to the state
budget, 471 million leks (5 leks equal US$1) were appropriated for
defense expenditures in 1970. That amount is 9.2 percent of the total
planned expenditures of 5,110 million leks, or about 225 leks per
inhabitant during the year. Whether or not all expenses that would fall
within the defense category in Western countries are included in these
figures is not known. It is the practice in some Communist governments
to distribute peripheral defense costs among other agency appropriations
(see ch. 8, Economic System).

The defense budget was increased drastically in 1969 and 1970 over the
levels of earlier years, apparently in reaction to the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia. The midyear calculated expenditures for 1969
represented an increase of about 38 percent over those of 1968, and 1970
projections showed another 12.2 percent anticipated increase over 1969.

The burden represented by 225 leks per person can be illustrated by
relating it to income and costs of living. In 1967, for example, a
typical head of family worker earned about 7,200 leks per year. The
average family group consisted of between five and six persons, and
about 90 percent of its earnings was required for food and housing.