What I want to repeat here, as I said yesterday, is that I've given my personal commitment to see through the implementation of the management action plan, because it is extraordinarily important for me that the military justice system remain a system that is not only in fact legitimate, in fact answering the requirements of the Canadian Armed Forces, but is also seen as extremely important.
Regarding how Bill C-77 would address the issue of timeliness and the issue of delays, what I want to say again is that keeping at the unit level the minor disciplinary breaches removes the penal, criminal consequences that are currently attached to the summary trial process, which triggers a series of rights for the accused in accordance with Canadian law and with the Canadian charter in order for the summary trial to be the legally sound system that it is. To simplify the process, we remove the penal and criminal consequences from these types of infractions. We ensure that there is no criminal record associated with them. They are simple, basic disciplinary issues addressed at the unit level.
What does that mean? It means that we do not have to offer the right to election to the accused person. It means that we can streamline the process and decide at the outset that it will be one forum or the other. As a result, it cuts the time that it takes for a matter to get resolved, so we answer directly the Auditor General's preoccupation about the overall timeliness of the military justice system.
If it gets addressed by a summary hearing quickly or goes to court martial to start with, you remove all the delays that are associated with election, referral of charges from one level to the other, review of charges by legal officers and the legal advice that needs to be provided in that process. You remove the time taken for that, streamline the process and reduce delays.