“The Commonwealth Secretariat has a long history of promoting access to justice and building the institutional capacity of justice systems. For decades, the Secretariat has provided technical assistance to train judges, draft legislation, adopt technology and more. Military Justice is evolving, with reforms in recent years within and beyond the Commonwealth. Our objective is to support the transformation of military justice systems across the Commonwealth to ensure that they reflect international norms and standards, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law to improve access to justice and delivery of justice which of course is the ultimate goal of the law.”
The objectives of the pan-Commonwealth project include:
- Establishing a working group of Judge Advocates General or their equivalents
- Organising pan-Commonwealth military justice fora for Judge Advocates General and other experts; and
- Drafting Commonwealth Model Military Justice Principles
Speaking about the importance of the Military Justice Transformation Project, Francisca Pretorius, Head of OCCJR [Office of Civil and Criminal Justice Reform] said:
“The Commonwealth Secretariat is uniquely positioned to implement this project, and to become the preferred partner for military justice reform in the Commonwealth because Commonwealth member countries’ legal systems are either founded on English common law or the common law system is applied with other legal systems, such as civil and/or customary law. Through this common foundation, the Commonwealth can facilitate the sharing of experience, information, and knowledge.”
As part of the event, many attendees committed to supporting the project and going forward, the OCCJR team will be relying on their expertise to draft model laws for the Caribbean and to roll out the larger pan-Commonwealth project.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).