No to Military Justice

The recent stories of the handling of military cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault are very troubling particularly to ex military officers like me.  The headlines have concerned the most senior officers in the Canadian Forces, but we know that this situation permeates all ranks. The most recent case concerns discussions, during a Zoom meeting with over 100 participants, of bondage and kinky sex (or as one proponent described it, creative sex).  The person who reported it was soundly admonished by his superiors. The officer who was tasked with investigating it was junior that many of the call participants and was told that his career would be in jeopardy if he came to the ‘wrong’ conclusion. The military is trying to deal with these cases through the military justice system.  But that does not seem to be working very well.  Don’t get me wrong, I respect the military justice system.  I lived under it for the 28 years of my military career.  But for sexual cases it is obviously the wrong venue. 

 All such cases should be referred automatically to the civilian justice system.  One of the things that we hear from military victims is that the chain of command gets in the way of advancing any complaint.  In most cases of sexual crimes, the victim is of a lower rank that the alleged perpetrator.  As this goes up the chain of command, the senior officers tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the more senior person.  This makes an objective decision hard.  In addition, military officers, who may only see one or two cases in their career, would have a hard time determining a suitable punishment for any person found guilty.

 There would be several advantages to having cases referred to the civilian justice system, among them:

 -         -  The civilian system has people who are used to investigating and prosecuting such cases;

-          - Judges can order that a publication ban be imposed so that the name of the victim not be revealed thus tending to make it easier for victims to come forward;

-          - The civilian justice system will tend to be more impartial and not take such things as rank into account;

-          - Civilian courts are tending toward requiring judges to have sexual sensitivity training before handling such cases; and

-          - The power of the chain of command in such cases would be nullified.

There are no doubt things that would have to be considered in moving all such cases into the civilian system.  Which police force would have jurisdiction; municipal, provincial or the RCMP (which has its own problems with sexual crimes)?  What about crimes perpetrated at sea or at overseas deployments? But these and other issues can be addressed in a well thought out plan for such a move.

 One last point.  How do you court martial a General or Admiral in the Canadian Forces?  There is only one of them at any one time.  The National Defence Act requires the President of the court to be of equal or senior rank to the accused.  Any attempt to rectify this situation by appointing a new General could be easily challenged since the members of the court are to be selected arbitrarily.  The Minister of National Defence can appoint a new general but that would raise the question of the arbitrary nature of the new appointment.

 In view of the recent cases now being brought to light and the problems with any cases being properly handled by the military justice system, this move must be given very serious consideration now.