WHEN DOES THE JUDGMENT OF A COURT-MARTIAL BEGIN TO OPERATE?
1 When does the judgment of a court-martial begin to operate?
The simple answer is 3 months after review and confirmation. More people know about the term court-martial than those who know how it works. Simply defined, court-martial can mean an ad hoc court constituted under the authority of the Armed Forces Act, CAP A20, LFN, 2004(AFA) to try indicted Military personnel and dispose of disciplinary cases in the Military.
2. The judgment of a court-martial differs from the judgment of a high court in the same way the reproductive process of oviparous animals like fowl that gives birth to its young ones by laying eggs differs from that of viviparous animals like goat that gives birth to its young ones alive. The statutory root for the court-martial’s mode of giving judgment is enshrined in Section 149(1) of the AFA which provides as follows:
“An accused may, within three months after being sentenced by a court-martial and before the sentence is confirmed, submit to the confirming authority any written matter which may reasonably tend to affect the confirming authority’s decision whether to disapprove a finding of guilty or to approve the sentence”.
3. Yes, not goat because a baby goat has visible features of a goat and can be identified as a goat. The egg hasn’t displayed the features of any living thing for easy identification. It’s a living thing in the making. And so is like a court-martial judgment until it is confirmed after it has hatched during incubation involving a review by the confirming authority. An aggrieved convict is expected to forward his grounds of grievance to the confirming authority before it either confirms or disapproves the court-martial sentence. Hence the Court of appeal’s decision that until a court-martial judgment is confirmed, the trial isn’t completed. I hope I have made myself clear now on this point.
4. Furthermore, Section 148(3) of AFA specifically provides that:
“A finding of guilty or sentence of court-martial shall not be treated as a finding or sentence of the court-martial until it is confirmed”.
The AFA provisions quoted above categorically show that the Status of a court-martial judgment is that of an egg waiting to hatch after incubation of confirmation for it to ripen to an executable judgment. The court of appeal has affirmed this in the case of Akinwale V. Nigerian Army (2001) 16 NWLR, 115 per Oguntade J.C.A at paragraphs 125 paragraphs F-D thus:
“the process of hearing before the General Court-Martial and the confirmation of sentence are one and the same integral part of the trial of an accused person under the Armed forces Decree N0.105 of 1993. When a sentence has not been confirmed by the confirming authority, the hearing is not completed”.
5. The above statutory and judicial authorities have, no doubt, explained the fact that a court-martial finding and award remains an egg until it ripens to a Civil-Court Type of Judgment on hatching after incubation, by the confirming authority. Please note that it takes the incubation by the confirming authority for a court-martial findings and award to hatch and ripen to executable or appealable judgment.
