Politico: House’s sexual assault panel may be too late
Paul Cronan, director-general from the Australian Defence Force legal Service was featured in an article from Politico on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel asking advice from a panel of experts from outside the Pentagon on how best to stop the epidemic of rape and sexual assault in the military:
This week’s public meetings did offer panel members a chance to scrutinize several key parts of Gillibrand’s bill, including her argument that key U.S. allies have made the move to overhaul their military justice systems by taking the commander out of the decision process.
Paul Cronan, director-general from the Australian Defence Force Legal Service, flew 24 hours to Washington to testify. He explained that Australia faced the same set of concerns over how commanders would be perceived by their troops if they no longer had authority on such an important disciplinary matter.
“It’s a little bit like when we opened up [to] gays in military in the late ’80s,” Cronan said. “There was a lot of concern at that time that there’d be issues. But not surprisingly, there haven’t been any.”
