NAVAL DISCIPLINE (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 17 June 1941)

§ LORD SNELL

My Lords, this Bill is very short, quite simple, and, I think, non-controversial, yet a few words of explanation may be required as to why it is brought before Parliament at the present time. The object of the Bill is to facilitate the trial of naval officers under war conditions for offences rendering a formal trial desirable, but in respect of which the interference with service operations caused by the convening of a full Naval Court Martial can hardly be justified, especially under present conditions. A Naval Court Martial has always been a very formal affair, and perhaps rightly so, because it is empowered to inflict heavy penalties and, in the case of mutiny, to inflict the penalty of death without reference to and without the confirmation of a higher authority such as is required by Military Courts Martial.

Under the present law, which is mainly comprised of the Naval Discipline Act of 1866, a Naval Court Martial is composed of from five to nine officers. The President must be at least of Captain's rank and the members of the Court must be those officers present at the place where the Court Martial is summoned immediately junior to the President. They must all be officers of the executive branch of the Royal Navy, of the rank of Lieutenant or above, and there are provisions limiting the minimum rank of the officers composing a Court when the President is an officer of Commander's rank or above. Naval Courts Martial can only be summoned at places where at least two of His Majesty's ships are present. The old rule that such a Court could sit only on board a man-of-war has now been modified to the extent that a Court Martial may sit on shore under special circumstances. It was found during the last war that grave inconvenience was caused by summoning a Court Martial of what I may call a major character when it was desired only to try a junior officer for a comparatively minor offence, and the Naval Discipline Act of 1915 was therefore passed which introduced a new section—No. 57A—into the main Act.

415 This section provides as a war-time measure for what is known as a Disciplinary Court. This Court, while retaining all the formality of the Court-Martial procedure, does not involve anything near the same inconvenience to the Service. Its constitution is simpler and less rigid, but it can only deal with a limited class of offences and its powers are very limited. The present Bill, therefore, merely introduces a fresh type of offence into those which can, at the present time, be dealt with by Disciplinary Courts of this description. At present the offences are disobedience or using violent language to a superior officer, quarrelling or using provoking speech or gestures, desertion, improperly leaving a ship or place of duty, absence without leave, profane swearing, drunkenness, etc., and acts to the prejudice of good order and naval discipline. The offences which it is now proposed to include amongst those which can be dealt with by a Disciplinary Court are those falling under Section 9 of the Act which reads as follows: Every person subject to this Act who shall desert his post or sleep upon his watch or neglect to perform the duties imposed upon him shall be dismissed from His Majesty's Service with disgrace or shall suffer such other punishment as is hereinafter mentioned. This section quite obviously contains some very serious offences as well as some comparatively minor ones. The object of this Bill is to bring the minor offences of Section 9 into the Disciplinary Courts procedure. It is at the discretion of the Commander-in-Chief or Flag Officer who directs a Court to be convened whether he shall order a full Court Martial or a Disciplinary Court, but for any very serious offence he would, of course, be most likely to choose a Naval Court Martial.

The type of case which has been in mind in asking for this change to be made is where a junior officer has been negligent in the performance of his duties. Among cases which have actually occurred have been those where small vessels of war have been lost or damaged owing to such negligence, and where procedure under the proposed Bill would clearly be most appropriate. The Disciplinary Court procedure is only applicable to officers. The reason for this is that a rating can be punished by the summary procedure provided 416 by Section 56 of the Act without a Court Martial at all. It will thus be seen that the very small change proposed will enable offences of the nature mentioned by junior officers to be dealt with quickly and effectively; and it will no doubt be appreciated that the promptness with which a Court can be convened is a matter of vital importance under present conditions. Having regard to past experience and also to the urgency of the requirements of these times, the proposals in this Bill appear to me to be quite reasonable and desirable. I therefore invite your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I should like to be permitted to say a few words about this Bill. When I read it, which was only yesterday, certain suspicions were raised in my mind, but they have been largely dispelled by the very full explanation which my noble friend opposite has been good enough to give. Nevertheless, this Bill originates in your Lordships' House and deals with an important principle affecting naval discipline. The Court Martial is the safeguard of the officer, and of the rating in certain cases, and I submit to your Lordships that there are strong reasons why we should be careful about abrogating those rights. In recent years, dating, as my noble friend said, from 1915, there has been a steady whittling away of the practice of holding Courts Martial. The present Bill represents only a small slice, but in the last war the same reasons were put forward for abandoning the old principle of court-martialling the survivors of any of His Majesty's ships lost in war. The Court Martial in that case was not necessary for purposes of punishment. Cases have occurred where only one able seaman has survived from a man-of-war, and he has been put on trial, the reason being to ascertain the causes of the loss and to apportion praise or blame as the case may be. In the last war that old custom and rule, which had many advantages and many sanctions, was abandoned.

Then, as my noble friend also reminded your Lordships, certain rights of officers to Court Martial were taken away by the establishment of these Disciplinary Courts. We are now still further taking 417 away these rights, and in theory that is a matter which I suggest that your Lordships should regard with some jealousy, although in practice I am certain that these Courts function well and that justice is done. The fact remains, however, that the Court Martial is independent of the Board of Admiralty, while the Disciplinary Court or the Court of Inquiry set up in cases of loss of ships—and my noble friend referred to the loss of small ships—is, without being offensive at all, a packed body, a nominated body. Whereas, as my noble friend says, Court Martial sentences can be revised by the Board, the findings cannot, and for future purposes the findings are sometimes of importance.

I think it necessary to make these remarks because, although this Bill seems to be altogether unobjectionable, it is nevertheless in principle one more departure from the surviving rights of officers, and of men in certain cases. The appeal to the Court Martial is one of the surviving lights of the officers of the Royal Navy against the Board. It is an appeal to the Service. I trust that the Commander-in-Chief will in all serious cases, as my noble friend suggested that he would, rely always on the old, tried and trusted procedure of Court Martial.