9
I am afraid the Admiralty's
Appendix has a perforation. Section 52 of
the Naval Discipline Act provides a scale of
punishments in descending order of severity.
The rules for applying these punishments are
contained in Section 53. The effect of the
Hong Kong proposal, as embodied in the
Admiralty's Appendix, is to abolish
punishment of death except in the case of
murder and mutiny, and penal servitude in
all cases. The highest punishment is
therefore dismissal with disgrace which by
Section 53(6) involves also a sentence of
imprisonment. By Section 53(7), however,
imprisonment can only be awarded for two years.
The result is that, for example, by their
amended Section 2 of the Act treachery
by an officer commanding a ship in the face
of the enemy is punishable with dismissal
with disgrace and two years' imprisonment,
which hardly seems adequate. Whether the
Admiralty realise that this is the effect
of their proposed amendments I do not know,
but obviously Hong Kong cannot have intended
it. If to remedy this you alter Section
53(7) so as to make imprisonment possible
for any term up to a life sentence you throw
the scale of punishments out of gear. We
must point this out to Hong Kong, and I think
we had better suggest that in the circumstances
it would be preferable to retain the punishments
prescribed in the Naval Discipline Act
(with the exception of corporal punishment):
and