Defence Act 1954

199

F271[Swearing of court-martial.

199. (1) When a court-martial board is constituted with the required number of persons who are not objected to or the objections to whom have not been allowed, an oath in the form prescribed by court-martial rules shall be administered by the person or persons so prescribed to

(a) each member of the court-martial board, and

(b) every interpreter and shorthand writer or other note-taker in attendance.

(2) If a person required by this section to take an oath objects to taking an oath or is objected to as incompetent to take an oath, the military judge shall, if satisfied of the sincerity of the objection or, where the competence of a person to take an oath is objected to, of the oath having no binding effect on the conscience of that person, permit the person, instead of being sworn, to make a solemn declaration in the prescribed form, and for the purposes of this Act that declaration is deemed to be an oath.

(3) For the purposes of this section, different forms of oath may be prescribed for members of a court-martial board, interpreters and shorthand writers or other note-takers, and different persons may be prescribed to administer oaths and to take declarations.]

Annotations

Amendments:

F271

Substituted (1.09.2008) by Defence (Amendment) Act 2007 (24/2007), s. 49, S.I. No. 254 of 2008.

Editorial Notes:

E58

Person prescribed for the purposes of section (2.12.2019) by Rules of Procedure (Defence Forces) 2019 (S.I. No. 555 of 2019), rule 71, in effect as per rule 1(2), subject to transitional provision in para. (2).

E59

Previous affecting provision: person prescribed for purposes of section (1.09.2008) by Rules of Procedure (Defence Forces) 2008 (S.I. No. 204 of 2008), rule 73, in effect as per rule 1(2); revoked (2.12.2019) by Rules of Procedure (Defence Forces) 2019 (S.I. No. 555 of 2019), rule 73(1), in effect as per rule 1(2), subject to transitional provision in para. (2).