MILITARY COURTS BILLS: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

MILITARY COURTS BILLS: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

• 09 December 2025
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The National Assembly’s Defence & Military Veterans Committee has called for written submissions by 31 January 2026 on the Defence Amendment Bill and Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill. Tabled in Parliament on 20 November 2025, the overarching objective of each Bill is to give effect to a December 2024 Constitutional Court ruling on the independence of military courts.

Popularly known as the O’Brien judgment, the ruling applies in particular to the Court of a Military Judge and the Court of a Senior Military Judge established as courts of first instance under the 1999 Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Act. In that context, the Defence Amendment Bill provides for:

• the exclusion of military judges and senior military judges from investigation by boards of inquiry into compliance with their judgments, as well as
• the exclusion of the contents and merits of any such judgments or rulings from those inquiries.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Defence Amendment Bill
• Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill
• Constitutional Court ruling
• committee notice

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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