court-martial

The Sailor's Word-Book

A tribunal held under an act of parliament, of the year 1749, and not, like the mutiny act, requiring yearly re-enactment. It has lately, 6th August, 1861, been changed to the "Naval Discipline Act." At present a court may be composed of five, but must not exceed nine, members. No officer shall sit who is under twenty-one years of age. No flag-officer can be tried unless the president also be a flag-officer, and the others flag, or captains. No captain shall be tried unless the president be of higher rank, and the others captains and commanders. No court for the trial of any officer, or person below the rank of captain, shall be legal, unless the president is a captain, or of higher rank, nor unless, in addition, there be two other officers of the rank of commander, or of higher rank. Any witness summoned civil, naval, or military by the judge-advocate, refusing to attend or give evidence, to be punished as for same in civil courts. The admiralty can issue commissions to officers to hold courts-martial on foreign stations, without which they cannot be convened. A commander-in-chief on a foreign station, holding such a commission, may under his hand authorize an officer in command of a detached portion to hold courts-martial. Formerly all officers composing the court, attendants, witnesses, &c., were compelled to appear in their full-dress uniforms; but by recent orders, the undress uniform, with cocked hat and sword, is to be worn.

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