Duties of Convening Officer when convening Courts-Martial

When an officer convenes a court-martial he shall– (a) issue a convening order in the appropriate form set out in the Third Schedule to these Rules; (b) direct upon what charges the accused is to be tried and ensure that the accused has been remanded for trial by court-martial upon those charges either by his commanding officer or by the appropriate superior authority who has investigated them; (c) if he is of the opinion that charges should be put in separate charge-sheets, so direct and direct the order in which they are to be tried; (d) direct, if there is more than one accused, whether the accused are to be tried jointly or 40 (e) appoint the president and members of the court and any waiting members in accordance with rule 16; (f) if convening a court-martial at which he considers there should be a judge advocate, appoint a suitable person so there to act; (g) appoint an officer subject to military law or Attorney-at-law assisted by such an officer to prosecute or detail a commanding officer to appoint an officer subject to military law to prosecute, provided that the convening officer may appoint two such officers to prosecute if he thinks fit– (h) appoint the date, time and place for the trial; (i) send to the president the charge-sheet, and the convening order and in any case in which a judge advocate has not been appointed a copy of the summary or abstract of evidence from which any evidence which in his opinion would be inadmissible under the Act at the court-martial has been expurgated; (j) send to each member of the court and to each waiting member a copy of the charge-sheet; (k) send to the prosecutor copies of the charge- sheet and convening order and the original summary or abstract of evidence together with an unexpurgated copy thereof showing the passages (if any) copies which have been, expurgated in any copy sent to the president; (l) send to the judge advocate (if any) of the charge-sheet and convening order and an 41 unexpurgated copy of the summary or abstract (m) ensure that the accused is given a proper opportunity to prepare his defence in accordance with rule 18; and (n) take steps in accordance with rule 82 to procure the attendance at the court-martial of all witnesses to be called for the prosecution and all witnesses whose attendance the has reasonably requested in accordance with rule 18, provided that the convening officer may require the accused to defray or to undertake to defray, as the convening officer thinks fit, the cost of the attendance of a witness whose attendance he has requested and if the accused refuses to defray or to undertake to defray, as the case may be, such cost, the convening officer shall not be obliged to take any further steps to procure the attendance of that witness.