MILITARY OFFENDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1920, Page 5

MILITARY OFFENDERS.

ALTERATIONS OF TRIAL. (By - Wire.—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. The Military Serivce Amendment Bill, introduced to-day, ia designed primarily ■to transform offences against the Army Act, as detailed in the Military Service Act of lftlli, into offences against the New Zealand Military Service Aet. By the original measure these breaches of the law were deemed to ;be "offences against the Army Act and punishable accordingly," which would require them to bo tried and punished by military courts. That phrase is to bo struck out, and there is to be substituted for it the words, "shall be deemed to be an offence against this Act." The offences thus treated are desertion by the man who remained'in New Zealand after his unit had proceeded abroad, and by the man who left New Zealand with the object of avoiding military service. The man who made a false declaration in his attestation papers is also made an offender under the amended Act, whereas previously he was guilty of a breach of the regulations made under the principal Act. The clause which made desertion an indictable offence, punishable by a maximum term of Ave years' imprisonment with hard labor, is to be repeated. Nothing in the Bill Is. to affect the proceedings of any court-martial, either completed or pending, under the provisions of the principal Act.