As a Member of this body, I agree with the Chancellor in principle, but our conclusions do not match up.
The process of military justice must be one of trust. The question of national security and espionage is always going to be a difficult one, and it is unlikely that in such circumstances there will ever be a volume of evidence of sufficient girth to justify action to every citizen - especially the defendant's own defence team.
It is conceivable that question of oversight may need to be answered within the wider context of the military apparatus, however it is in fact ultimately up to a **military court** to try **military personnel** about **military misdeeds**.
The military is one system of hundreds that exist within the wider system of governance. Our officers are commissioned by the executive and legislature together to act on behalf of the state. It should not then be again doubly forced to justify their actions. In a perfect world, we may not have need of a military - but this is not a perfect world. We should not, and in fact **must not** attempt to demoralise or dismantle the trust of our military simply because some civilian facilitators *feel* unsure about the JAG's conclusions.
It is not the function of this executive, the judicial, nor the legislature, to interfere in what ultimately appears to be a strongly supported and routine military trial. We have our rights in the development of the officer corps. We have the rights to revoke commissions within this corps. We have rights alongside our military leadership to ensure that the civilian and military dichotomy work in cooperative harmony.
It is *not* within our purview to begin to mirco-manage our armed forces. Standing aside from the most existing rationalities: if we consider the idea that all the defence's allegations are *true* we are still compelled not to act in such a way. Systems will be imperfect, and oversight exists within both our civilian judicial system as well as our military. Clearly if the defence felt they had the evidence necessary, there would have been a retrial. Yet, still an entire year after the fact, there has not been sufficient call to provide an appeal within the procedures of our legal system. In attempting to lessen the Type I error within our system, we should be careful to immediately outweigh that decision by increasing Type II errors. We owe it to the military and civilian population both to provide a balanced and workable legal framework.
