Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is to change the make-up of the panel. From the very beginning, one of the Bloc québécois' concerns has always been to bring military justice closer to civil justice, without however going so far as to having the former be a replica of the latter. It is in itself a noble objective. As a matter of fact, I would remind you that a certain number of countries, for example Great Britain and Australia, were called to task for having too great a distance between the two justice systems.
Under the provisions of the bill as it now stands, if the accused is a non-commissioned member, the panel is composed of two officers and three non-commissioned members. The Bloc québécois would like to change this make-up in order for the panel to be composed of one officer and four non-commissioned members.
This would fall in with the decisions made within our society regarding the treatment of persons facing accusations, or the redress of grievances. People from every layer of society present their arguments and decide on the fate of their peers. I believe the same principles should apply in the case of non-commissioned members. It might even have been advisable to go even further and to propose that a non-commissioned member be judged by five non-commissioned members, in other words his peers. However, we wish to position ourselves between the two options. Instead of there being two officers and three non-commissioned members, we are proposing that there be one officer and four non-commissioned members.
That is our submission.