PARLIAMENT: FINAL OPPORTUNITY FOR SUBMISSIONS ON TWO DEFENCE BILLS

PARLIAMENT: FINAL OPPORTUNITY FOR SUBMISSIONS ON TWO DEFENCE BILLS

• 22 July 2026
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The NCOP’s Security and Justice Committee has called for written submissions by 7 August 2026 on the Defence Amendment Bill and Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill. Tabled in Parliament on 20 November 2025 and passed by the National Assembly in June 2026, 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’s ‘B’ version
• committee notice
• Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Amendment Bill’s ‘B’ version
• committee
• Constitutional Court ruling

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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