The United Kingdom Forces (Jurisdiction of Colonial Courts) Order 1965

Restriction of trial of service offenders by courts of Territory

3.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person charged with an offence against the law of the Territory shall not be liable to be tried for that offence by a court of the Territory if at the time that the offence is alleged to have been committed he was a member of Her Majesty's forces or a member of a civilian component of any of those forces and—

(a) the alleged offence, if committed by him, arose out of and in the course of his duty as a member of Her Majesty's forces or a member of that civilian component, as the case may be; or

(b) the alleged offence is an offence against the person, and the person or, if more than one, each of the persons in relation to whom it is alleged to have been committed had at the time thereof a relevant association with Her Majesty's forces; or

(c) the alleged offence is an offence against property, and the whole of the property in relation to which it was alleged to have been committed (or, in cases where different parts of that property were differently owned, each part of the property) was at the time thereof the property either of a department of the Government of the United Kingdom or of some other authority of the United Kingdom or of Her Majesty's forces or of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes or of any other institution or organization operating for the benefit of Her Majesty's forces that is prescribed by order of the Governor of the Territory or the property of a person having such an association as aforesaid.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section—

(a) shall prevent a person from being tried by a court of the Territory in any case where a certificate is issued by or on behalf of the Governor, either before or in the course of the trial, that the officer commanding Her Majesty's forces in the Territory has notified the Governor that it is not proposed that the case should be dealt with by a service court; or

(b) shall affect anything done or omitted in the course of a trial unless in the course thereof objection has already been made that by reason of that subsection the court is not competent to deal with the case; or

(c) shall, after the conclusion of a trial, be treated as having affected the validity thereof if no such objection was made in the proceedings at any stage before the conclusion of the trial.

(3) In relation to cases where the charge (by whatever words expressed) is a charge of attempting or conspiring to commit an offence, or of aiding, abetting, procuring or being accessory to the commission of an offence, paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (1) of this section shall have effect as if references in those paragraphs to the alleged offence were references to the offences which the person charged is alleged to have attempted or conspired to commit or, as the case may be, the offence as respects which it is alleged that he aided, abetted, procured or was accessory to the commission thereof; and references in those paragraphs to persons in relation to whom, or property in relation to which, the offence is alleged to have been committed shall be construed accordingly.

(4) Nothing in this section shall be construed as derogating from the provisions of any law of the Territory restricting the prosecution of any proceedings or requiring the consent of any authority to the prosecution thereof.

(5) The Governor of the Territory may by order prescribe the offences against the law of the Territory which shall respectively be offences against the person and offences against property for the purposes of this section.

(6) Nothing in this section shall be construed as precluding a court of the Territory from trying any person for an offence against the law of the Territory in respect of which he has, before the date on which this Order was made, been charged before a court of the Territory.