About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

22 Mil. L. Rev. 111 (1963)
The Devil's Article

handle is hein.journals/milrv22 and id is 119 raw text is: THE DEVIL'S ARTICLE* BY WING COMMANDER D. B. NICHOLS** I. INTRODUCTION Conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline is on of the offenses which form the hard core of military law. For several centuries, it has served military law well. It has been a basic weapon in punishing conduct contrary to the prevailing service ethic. It has enabled British and American armies to adapt their standards to the stress of wars and to developments in the techniques and technologies of war. It has also served in pioneering new countries, in the development and control of empires, in military occupations, in cold wars, and in all the varied uses to which armies have been put. It has been a weapon ad- ministered primarily by laymen. Whether it will serve equally well in the present era in which lawyers play a greater part, particularly through court-martial appeal courts, remains to be seen. The comments of Lord Reid in a dissenting judgment in the House of Lords on a recent civil appeal against a conviction for conspiracy to corrupt public morals illustrate the broad problem posed by the change in military law from a layman's law to a lawyer's law: Finally I must advert to the consequences of holding that this very gen- eral offence exists. It has always been thought to be of primary impor- tance that our law, and particularly our criminal law, should be certain: that a man should be able to know what conduct is and what is not criminal, particularly when heavy penalties are involved. Some sugges- tion was made that it does not matter if this offence is very wide: no one would ever prosecute and if they did no jury would ever convict if the breach was venial. Indeed, the suggestion goes even further: that the meaning and application of the words deprave and Corrupt (the traditional words in obscene libel now enacted in the 1959 Act) or the words debauch and corrupt in this indictment ought to be entirely for the jury, so that any conduct of this kind is criminal if in the end a * The opinions and conclusions presented herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Judge Advocate General's School or any other governmental agency, or of the Australian Department of Air. ** Director of Legal Services, Department of Air, Commonwealth of Australia; B.A., LL.B., University of Melbourne, 1947. AGO 5714B II

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most