Decisions to be handed down in 3 Canadian Supreme Court cases

The Supreme Court of Canada has announced that decisions will be handed down at 9:45 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2015 in these three military cases:

Second Lieutenant Moriarity et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen et al. (F.C.) (35755)

Private Alexandra Vezina v. Her Majesty the Queen (F.C.) (35873)

Sergent Damien Arsenault c. Sa Majesté la Reine (C.F.) (35946) 

Summaries of these cases are available here.

Inaugural Military Law Conference - Ottawa, Ontario - November 13, 2015

Global military justice.  Left to right:
His Honour Judge Jeff Blackett, UK JAG; BGen Jan Peter Spijk  President,
International Society for Military Law and Law of War; Eugene R. Fidell,
Senior Research Scholar in Law & Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer, Yale Law School;
Colonel Robin Holman, Deputy Judge Advocate General (Canada)

Part of the Audience - Faculty of Law,
Ottawa University

Some of the 23 speakers and panellists

The conference was attended by approx. 100  persons.  Members of the audience were from the judiciary, the military bar, academia and the general public.

Angolan judge honored by Brazilian state military court

The military court of Minas Gerais has conferred a high honor on a military judge from Angola, according to this report:

The Plenary of the Military Justice Court of the State of Minas Gerais, in Brazil, approved by unanimity the grant of the Judicial Military Merit Necklace 2015 to the Chief Justice of Angolan Military Court, general António dos Santos Neto "Patónio". 

ANGOP has learnt that the Military Merit necklace is the highest distinction of Military Justice in Minas Gerais, with which in recent years were distinguished statesmen, certain authorities and personalities that have contributed to the improvement of the constitutional provision of this specialised court. 

The ceremony is part of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Military Justice of the State of Minas Gerais, held last Monday at the Club of Officers of the military police, in Belo Horizonte (Brazil). 

On the other hand, individuals were also honoured including the governor of Minas Gerais, Fernando da Mata Pimentel, and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais, deputy Adalclever Ribeiro Lopes.

Military jurisdiction in Guinea-Bissau

Rear Admiral José Zamora Induta

Given the voracious appetite some military justice systems display for expanded jurisdiction, consider this excerpt from a story from Guinea-Bissau:

Guinea-Bissau's highest court has ordered the release of a former armed forces chief detained for more than three months over suspected involvement in a failed 2012 coup attempt. 

José Zamora Induta, a rear-admiral who was ousted as military chief of staff in 2010, was placed under house arrest after returning from exile in Portugal in July and transferred to an army barracks in September. 

The Supreme Court ruled late on Wednesday however that the military tribunal which ordered his arrest had no jurisdiction "because the crime for which Zamora must answer is not a crime of a military nature". 

"My client is ready to face justice to clarify the charges hanging over his head, but not before a military court that has no legitimacy to judge such cases," his lawyer José Paulo Semedo told [Agence France Presse] on Thursday.

Paris