Commentary on provisions of Act Section 6: Period for which sentence of service detention may be suspended
Section 190 of AFA 2006 enables a court or commanding officer, when passing a sentence of service detention, to suspend that sentence for between three and twelve months. The period for which the sentence is suspended is known as the 'operational period’. The person sentenced is required to serve the period of service detention if they are convicted of another offence committed during the ‘operational period’.
	Section 6 amends section 190 to increase, from twelve to twenty-four months, the maximum ‘operational period’ which the Court Martial may impose when suspending a sentence of service detention. The maximum ‘operational period’ remains twelve months for a commanding officer sentencing a person following summary hearing and for the Court Martial sentencing a person whose case would have been dealt with summarily had they not made an election to be dealt with by the Court Martial (section 129 of AFA 2006 makes provision to allow a person to elect to be tried by Court Martial rather than be dealt with by his or her commanding officer).
	The effect of subsection (2) is that the new maximum may only be imposed when sentencing for offences committed on or after section 6 comes into force. Subsection (3) makes provision for the purposes of subsection (2) with respect to cases where the date on which the offence was committed is not clear.