Budgets and discipline: choose one

DefenceWeb reports on a budget crunch in South Africa with implications for the administration of justice. Excerpt:

According to the Department of Defence annual performance plan for the current year the budget allocation for legal services is more than R47 million less than the requested – and approved – amount of R297 841 000. This includes R56 million plus for the Military Ombud office, headed by retired lieutenant general Temba Matanzima.

The performance plan has it that both the human resource component and operating means required for the administration of military justice “will be severely impaired and will result in increases in backlog cases and cases of fraud and corruption”.

“This will result in a military discipline system or structure unable to support the Constitutional imperative of ‘managing the defence force as a disciplined military force’.”