Since its creation in 1950, the Uniform Code of Military Justice \u2014 with only minor tweaks along the way \u2014 has proven to be a remarkably durable framework for fairly carrying out the complex tenets of military justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military justice system will always retain a certain level of camo-pattern quirkiness, simply due to the many unique aspects of military life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the times are changing more rapidly these days than they used to, and in some important respects, the UCMJ has become a bit outdated in comparison to the civilian judicial system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just one case in point: Do we really need to continue putting unruly service members at sea on “bread and water” rations, a practice whose heyday was the long-gone Age of Sail?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eliminating that punishment is among dozens of proposed changes to the UCMJ that Pentagon officials have submitted to Congress for approval following an in-depth, two-year review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another proposal is to carve out 37 new, specific “articles” for criminal acts that until now have been grouped collectively under Article 134, the catch-all “General Article” that seeks to protect “good order and discipline.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other suggested changes would simplify courts-martial of troops on deployment; give military judges broader authority over courts-martial sentencing; and make the UCMJ more reflective of modern technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On that last point, for example, Article 130, “Stalking,” would be updated to include the misuse of emails, text messages, social media posts and other modern electronic communications for that purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taken as a whole, the proposal is a rational, good-faith effort to modernize the military justice system, adapting best practices in the civilian judiciary where it makes sense to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Evidence of that good faith is embodied in one particularly important proposal that would make the entire system more transparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, accessing information about military trials can be difficult, costly and time-consuming \u2014 a longstanding complaint of advocates, defendants, the media and the public. Outside of bona fide national security concerns, there’s just no need for such secrecy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s time to change the outdated parts of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":75902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[267],"class_list":["post-39780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VGUJUYERCVGNHL4CAYVAQ4R7HM","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/2016\/01\/04\/overdue-overhaul-for-ucmj\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n