Schedule 16 – Minor and Consequential Amendments
890.Not only is there a considerable amount of legislation that directly relates to the armed forces, but there is also a considerable amount of legislation in which reference is made to the armed forces or to armed forces legislation, in particular the SDAs. As a result of the changes being made by this Act there is a significant amount of legislation that requires amendment so as to ensure that references are made to the correct provisions, or courts or terminology etc or to remove redundant provisions. This Schedule sets out some of the amendments to other Acts that are required as a result of the provisions of this Act.
891.The amendments set out in this Schedule are often more substantial than simple changes of names or references to Acts (which will be covered in orders made under the power to make further amendments and repeals at section 379 if they have not been included in this Schedule). For example, the single-service Summary Appeal Courts were established in 2000 and many Acts that refer to service courts were not updated to include a reference to the Summary Appeal Courts. The Act now establishes a tri-service Summary Appeal Court and we are taking this opportunity to update other legislation that relates to courts, to include references to the SAC.
892.In addition Schedule 16 contains various amendments to the SDAs. These amendments – such as “preliminary hearings as to plea” – are being introduced to bring the current law more closely in line with the effect that will be created under this Act in order to aid transition. Whilst the Act does provide the Secretary of State with a power to align the SDAs by means of statutory instruments (at section 381), some of the necessary alignment measures cannot be achieved in this way. This is because the alignment power in section 381 cannot be used to replicate provisions that will be created under the Act in secondary legislation. As arraignment will be dealt with in Court Martial Rules made under section 163 it was therefore necessary to make the changes to the SDAs on the face of the Act.