The Law and Legal System - Task 2: Prepare a report explaining with appropriate examples how civil and military lw affect the armed forces personnel. Remember to include information about the legislations, punishments and legal procedures.

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The law and legal system, task 2                Marcia Brown

The Law and Legal System – Task 2:

Prepare a report explaining with appropriate examples how civil and military lw affect the armed forces personnel. Remember to include information about the legislations, punishments and legal procedures.

Before I start this report please note, when I refer to the armed forces, I am talking about the Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

Whether you are a house wife or a solicitor, you will always follow the British civil law. For people of the armed forces, they must also follow the civil laws but they will always have to follow military law too. Some soldiers, who are sent to other countries such as Iraq and also bound by the civil laws of Iraq, it is because of this that can affect the way in which the armed forces work together.

The Military Law.

This is based on three different legislations:

  1. The Army Act 1955
  2. The Air Force Act 1955
  3. The Naval Act 1957

There is another act known as The Armed Forces Act 2001 but this only provides the background information for the ones above. The 3 legislations above are what are used for the majority of issues found within the armed forces.

They are revised and updated if necessary every 5 years to ensure they are still relevant to the ever changing attitudes in society.

Under these acts, come many different offences that are made by personnel and 3 of these offences include:

  • Desertion – This is when a soldier decides he wants to leave but fails to tell anyone or give a reason for why they no longer want to be in the army.
  • AWOL – This stands for absent without leave. This is like the starting phase of desertion. When a soldier deserts the army, it will start as absent without leave.
  • Improper possession of military equipment – This is basically, someone for example, wanted a bit more kit or wanted to do someone in their spare time but without authorisation. It is not stealing as such because they have not actually deprived anyone of it and have the intention to give it back eventually.
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If someone was to be caught committing any of these offences there are two things that could happen. They could either be sent to a summary or a court martial.

A Summary Trial.

A summary trial is basically where personnel are sent to be dealt with by their commanding officer. The commanding officer is only able to restrict liberty for up to 60 days ( this could be something such as going down the pub for the night or going off base to their girlfriends), he can as well as restrict liberty, fine up to 28 days ...

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