.

Procedures for criminal prosecution were set down in readily
understandable language that, if adhered to, guaranteed equitable
treatment during investigation, trial, and sentencing to a degree
hitherto unknown in the court system. There were also provisions for
appeal of lower and intermediate court sentences.

Petty cases were disposed of by judicial commissions that did not have
court status. Such commissions were set up in villages, institutions,
collectives, or enterprises comprising as few as 200 people. Although
authorized to administer only small fines or penalties, they were
established in a fashion designed to involve large numbers of people in
the judicial process and to exert local pressures on those appearing
before them.

INTERNAL SECURITY

During the mid-1950s the militia (civil police force) and security
troops were busily engaged in apprehending alleged spies, traitors,
saboteurs, and those who persisted in voicing beliefs considered
dangerous to the regime and the socialist system. In the early 1970s
directives for security agencies still identified the 1950 threats to
the regime and exhorted the agencies to continue to combat the same old
enemies of the people. The emphasis has been altered, however, and
national authorities appeared generally satisfied with the improved
internal security situation in 1972.

The regime had by then become seriously concerned much less over mass
violence or organized subversion than over levels of unrest or passive
resistance that are evidenced by widespread laxity, carelessness,
indolence, or an obvious lack of popular support. The militia blamed a
rash of railroad accidents in 1970 on laxity when investigation
determined that the equipment had, in nearly all cases, operated
properly and the people had received sufficient training to make the
system work safely. It also blamed an excessive number of fires on
carelessness and negligence. Classified political and economic data were
found on several occasions during routine checks of unoccupied and
unsecured automobiles. New laws were published in 1970 to deal with
vagrancy, begging, prostitution, and persons not seeking employment or
living what the authorities termed "useless lives."

Although they have been relaxed, controls over the population remain
strict by Western standards. A 1971 decree on the establishment of
private residence placed rigid limitations on movement to the cities,
allowing only those w