Obviously, Mr. Chair, there are a lot of nuances in the act.
As you know, Mr. Bachand, from previous iterations on the summary trial process, I really urge the committee, and in fact all members of the public, to understand that there is a fundamental difference in the approach to justice from a military's perspective, and obviously not in consideration of things like rights and charter applications, where we're as vigilant as the civilian system. But in our own system, the fundamental purpose, the objective, is always to maintain discipline, both in times of peace and in times of war, so that soldiers, airmen, sailors always have that obedience to command. Within that structure we have the two systems, as you well know: summary trial and court martial system. The summary trial, by far, historically, even today is the most used of the systems, and I think that reflects many positive things.
Number one, it's a system that the chain of command and the troops, in fact, are most comfortable with. They understand it conceptually. They understand the reason for it and the consequences that flow out of that process, and because of that it has to be a system that is obviously fair, but efficient and operationally relevant. If we decide just to turn it into, as some jurisdictions do, for their own philosophical reasons, essentially another type of full-blown trial with all the same rights of having a judge, a prosecutor, a defending counsel, all those things, then I think at the end of the day you're not going to achieve that right balance between having a system that results in the troops understanding what discipline is about, but at the same time not hindering their rights or the fairness.
The minister has talked about the right to counsel. In fact, they are permitted to have counsel. It's a request; it's not automatic. And indeed if the counsel shows up, I've had experiences myself where if the counsel wishes to make complex legal arguments, without hesitation, I'm sure, a commanding officer, a presiding officer, at summary trial will push it up to a court martial, which is the proper forum for having legal arguments based on charter rights, etc.