Excuse me, it is a court set up under the statute law of England. This is one of the most elementary things in law, that the military code has, in recent years, by gradual development, become a Military Act. Almost all the regulations to which a soldier is subject as a soldier are under the Army Act. That of itself has no authority, and carries with it no force only each year the Army Annual Act is passed, and on the occasion of that various alterations may be and have been introduced. But it is a Court under the ordinary law of England. It is applicable to soldiers; it is an ordinary and not an "extraordinary Court." Everyone here knows that at various times, when Kings tried to be tyrants, and when invasions of the Constitution were attempted they took the form of extending military law to civilians. And it has always been declared illegal to apply military law to civilians. Martial law is understood in the original draft here. The original draftsman is a better authority on the status, I think, than the acceptor of the amendment. Martial Law applies here to a very special situation, namely, where there is suspension of the ordinary statute law and the whole country, or part of the country, has to be put under military control. In that case you do not require a statute of the legislature, and it is the setting up of an "extraordinary court," it is the extension of the jurisdiction which will otherwise be wholly illegal and altogether at variance with the rights and liberties of the civilian subject. I would ask the Minister to be very cautious before he tampers with the words of this, as on a previous occasion, when tampering with another Article, by which he swept away a number of recently made statutes. " No one shall be tried save in due course of law and extraordinary courts shall not be established. The jurisdiction of Courts Martial shall not be extended to or exercised over the civil population save in time of war." That is the very doctrine we had before in an earlier debate on another subject altogether, where I contended we were taking over a going concern. That was disputed. At the present moment during the transition period we are working under the British Constitution, and the whole British code of law. These have not been set aside. According to this draft what is being made use of is the common law right, that is in the Crown and in the officers that it appoints to discharge this work for it, the common law right to repel force by force and take such measures as are necessary to quell insurrection or riot. I would ask the Minister to be very careful before introducing into the Constitution in the way of amendments something that would take away by the Constitution that common law right. Apart altogether from Constitutions and legal enactments every organised community has in it, as every person has in him, the inherent right of self-preservation and protection against force or force imminent. Every organised community, especially so with regard to the system we are carrying on at present, has the common law right, not merely to repel force by force when force is actually offered, but in the expectation of it where it is obviously imminent to take such measures as are necessary to repel it. Whoever drafted this Article had all that in view.
