That's another very good question, Mr. Chair.
No, the officers who work for the office of the JAG don't control the courts-martial process. They provide advice to the chain of command within the process.
As you're familiar with--and I know the chair is as well--the military justice system has two main components, one called the summary trial system, which largely deals with disciplinary matters and charges before commanding officers and chain of command, and then a more formal court martial, where we have a military judge, defence counsel, and a prosecutor.
My folks advise the chain of command as incidents occur. Either there are charges laid, or charges are contemplated during the investigatory stage and during the process are laid, but once this enters formally into the courts-martial process and it's handed over to the director of military prosecutions, that office is essentially an independent actor and makes its own decisions in terms of whether charges proceed or not.
Likewise for the accused, defence counsel, when they're appointed, could be from our defence counsel services, which are uniformed legal officers. They could also be civilian if they accused so chooses. I don't control it. It's an independent office. I can have aspects of personnel issues, but as far as their decisions and actions vis-à-vis their client, the accused, are concerned, I have no role in terms of providing advice on that. Similarly, of course, the judges are independent.