The military justice portions of the bill merit close study. It appears to suffer from at least one of the main defects in prior law: subjecting civilians to trial by court-martial. This is barred by the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and strongly disfavored by global human rights jurisprudence.
The bill would give renewable three-year terms to legally-trained court-martial members, whose rulings on legal issues would be binding in unit and divisional courts-martial, but not in the general court-martial. The bill also makes provision for appellate review in the civilian courts.
If the bill passes as introduced, watch for renewed proceedings in the Supreme Court.
NilePost has this report on the bill.
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