MILITARY COURTS: TWO AMENDMENT BILLS HEAD TO PARLIAMENT

MILITARY COURTS: TWO AMENDMENT BILLS HEAD TO PARLIAMENT

• 18 November 2025
• Safety and Security
• SA Legal Academy

Explanatory summaries have been gazetted in anticipation of the imminent introduction in Parliament of two amendment Bills with implications for military courts. The Bills themselves are not yet available.

According to a media statement on the 15 October 2025 Cabinet meeting at which they were approved for tabling, the Bills seek to give effect to a December 2024 Constitutional Court ruling on the independence of military courts. In that context, the statement referred ‘particularly’ to ‘courts of first instance’ established under the 1999 Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Act: ‘the Court of a Military Judge’ and ‘the Court of a Senior Military Judge’.

Against that backdrop, the Defence Amendment Bill’s explanatory summary refers to provisions excluding military judges and senior military judges from boards of inquiry.

The Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill’s explanatory summary refers to provisions:

• establishing a military judicial advisory committee, and
• enabling ‘the assignment and removal of military judges and senior military judges’.

Please click the links belwo for more information:

• explanatory summary of the Defence Amendment Bill
• explanatory summary of the Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill
• Constitutional Court ruling
• Cabinet media statement

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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