The US-led administration ruling Iraq is to set up a special court to try the country's most serious offenders.
It also plans to purge the judiciary of all officials with ties to Saddam Hussein.
Mr Paul Bremer, the top American official in Iraq, said today that the new Central Criminal Court would be used for trials of Saddam loyalists who had committed crimes against occupying US and British forces.
"One of the main reasons for my establishing this court is so that we can try people, in particular senior Baathists...who may have committed crimes against the coalition, who are trying to destabilise the situation here, and so we can do it rather quickly," he said.
He said the new court would operate until Iraq'scollapsed judicial system was operational again. He said it would be staffed entirely with Iraqi judges and prosecutors.
The goal was an independent and transparent judiciary, Mr Bremer said.
"Under Saddam Hussein, the judiciary was viewed as corrupt, and as lacking adequate independence from the rest of the government," he said.
"No longer will evidence obtained by torture be admissible. And no longer will defendants have toappear in court without defence lawyers."
Mr Bremer also said the US-led administration had issued a decree banning Iraqis from inciting violence against the forces occupying Iraq.