2022 Amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States
This executive order, dated January 26, 2022, directs amendments to Parts II and IV of the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (MCM). The changes are administered under the President’s authority to oversee military justice and align the MCM with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and prior related rules. The amendments take effect on the date of the order, but the order includes explicit protections against retroactive criminalization and safeguards for ongoing actions. The exact textual changes are contained in an annex attached to the order. In short, the order updates the MCM to modernize and refine how courts-martial are conducted and how offenses are treated, while ensuring that acts or prosecutions initiated before the order are not grandfathered or retroactively altered in ways that would punish otherwise non-punishable conduct.
Key Points
- 1Amends Parts II and IV of the Manual for Courts-Martial (the actual changes are specified in the attached Annex to the order).
- 2Effective date: the amendments take effect on the date of the order; they are prospective in application.
- 3Retroactivity limitation: nothing in the amendments makes punishable any act that was not punishable at the time the act was done or omitted.
- 4Continuity of ongoing proceedings: the amendments do not invalidate nonjudicial punishment proceedings, investigations, referrals, arraignments, or trials begun prior to the order, and those actions may proceed as if the amendments had not been prescribed.
- 5Purpose and scope: the changes are administrative updates to the MCM to reflect current practice and statutory framework under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, preserving alignment with prior executive guidance (e.g., EO 12473) and federal law.