Page 259 - 2018 Defense White Paper

2. Improving the Military Justice System

| Building a Military Justice System That Guarantees Independence and Fairness | The
MND is pursuing reforms for the military justice system to protect servicemembers’ human

rights and their right for fair trial, and improve the independence and fairness of military courts
and prosecutors.
First, the MND decided to transfer the jurisdiction over appellate trials to civilian courts. The

f irst-instance military courts will be located in f ive areas and directly report to the MND. The
local military courts will be helmed by civilian legal practitioners. In addition, the MND decided
to abolish the review by jurisdiction authorities 17) and the appointment of f ield off icers as lay

judges. 18) To ensure the independence of military judges, the MND will establish a personnel
management committee for military judges to handle the recommendation for promotion and
reappointment reviews, and prohibit military judges from taking other legal positions such as
judge advocate or military prosecutor. These changes aimed at improving the military justice

system will be implemented in the form of an amendment to the Military Court Act.

Chapter 6

17) Jurisdiction authorities are commanders of the units in which military courts are set up (Article 7, Military Court
Act). They review the decisions of military courts and reduce stipulated sentences by up to one-third in cases
where the accused committed the crimes in the course of actively performing their duties with due diligence
(Article 379, Military Court Act).
18) A unique feature of a military trial in which officers not qualified as judges are appointed as lay judges and try
cases along with military judges

Section 3 Reinforcing the Human Rights Protection for Servicemembers 257