---

Armed Forces Bill

I have amendments in this group. The Bill covers the composition of the court martial. It states that, to be on a court martial, an officer must have an aggregate of three years’ commissioned service. However, there is a difficulty with that. He could have had two years’ commissioned service several years ago, a gap in service and then come back into the services and suddenly find himself on a court martial. I suggest that he should have three years’ continuous service before being on a court martial. I appreciate that would slightly reduce the pool of officers available for courts martial but, on the other hand, it would improve their quality. Clause 142(2) states that, "““immediately before receiving his commission, he was a warrant officer in any of those forces””." The difficulty here is that sometimes senior NCOs, perhaps a staff sergeant or equivalent, are commissioned. That person has plenty of military experience and the qualities to enable him to be commissioned but he cannot be on a court martial because he was not a warrant officer immediately before being commissioned. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that point.