REVISION OF DEFENCE LEGISLATION
1. In 1994, the Minister of Defence, Mr J. M. Modise, appointed a work-group known as the Defence Act Project Team (DAPT) to revise the Defence Act and the Military Discipline Code (MDC). The team is chaired by Rear Admiral Retief, the current Inspector General of the DOD.
2. The coordinated task of drafting the new Defence Act and the MDC by the work-group has awaited the results of the Defence Review and will also be affected by the transformation process.
3. The Defence Review is nearing completion while the transformation process is at an advanced stage. The process of drafting legislation to give life to these initiatives is thus now under way.
4. On 7 August 1997, at a Defence Review Legal Environment Seminar, the Minister of Justice, Mr Dullar Omar, proposed involving civil society in the revision of defence legislation, particularly the MDC. This proposal was endorsed by the Minister of Defence and by the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Defence. The Minister thereupon issued an instruction on 15 October 1997 that an expanded work-group be set up immediately.
5. These participants have combined with the Defence Act Project Team (DAPT) of the DoD to form the Expanded Work Group (EWG).
6. The chiefs of the 18 MoD divisions established by the Minister in April 1997 are to:
6.1 Investigate whether any specific new legislation is required to enable and support their processes;
6.2 Identify any restrictions in the Defence Act that need to be addressed;
6.3 To do the same for the General Regulations for the SANDF and current SANDF Orders and policy directives; and
6.4 To advise the Chairperson of EWG about their requirements.
7. The responsibilities of the EWG fall into the following main areas:
7.1 Review all options generated to satisfy specific legal requirements to ensure that they comply with Constitutional imperatives, as well as the policy and constraints imposed by the White Paper on Defence and the Defence Review;
7.2 Determine whether the proposed options will enable and support all the approved processes selected for the DOD;
7.3 Advise on the acceptability of specific options;
7.4 Review Military Law systems and evaluate current performance of the system.
7.5 Make specific recommendations with regard to the Military Law system.
8. Two sub-groups have been established to work on the Defence Act and the MDC.
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