Military Reform In Australia

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The need for military reforms in nearly every jurisdiction cannot go unmentioned. In Australia there has been attempts to reform the military justice system. In its 2005 report on the effectiveness of Australia's military justice system, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee recommended the creation of a military court that would comply with the constitutional requirements for a federal court. To that point, military justice in Australia was administered by military tribunals within the chain of command.
The Senate Committee formed the view that military tribunals were not sufficiently independent of military command structures, and their concerns were heightened by British and Canadian decisions which held similar military
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The Government has now published its Armed Forces Bill, which makes significant changes in the court martial system and deals with a number of issues raised in the written and oral evidence the Committee received during its inquiry. The Committee considers that it would be helpful to Members, if, as well as publishing the evidence in time for the debates on the Bill, it presented this short report drawing attention to some of the issues which were raised, particularly those which are …show more content…
1. The persons convening any military trial be a person qualified in law and who has undergone legal training. The persons ought to understand the principles of justice.
2. That the judge-advocates and the military judges be given a security of tenure. This will enable the military judges and judge-advocates to oversee cases without fear or favour as they are secured to be in office despite exercising their discretion.
3. The convening authorities in the summary proceedings of a trial be given less power and say when determining the fate of an accused. This will ensure less Command Influence and ultimately justice for the