Commentary on provisions of Act Section 3: Duty of service policeman following investigation
This section amends provisions in Part 5 of AFA 2006 which deal with the process of deciding whether a person is to be charged with an offence under that Act.  Part 5 sets out the roles of the service police, the commanding officers of those suspected or charged and the Director of Service Prosecutions ("the Director") in the investigation, charging and prosecution of offences. Commanding officers have limited powers enabling them to deal with minor examples of some offences in a form of summary hearing.
	In all cases which cannot be dealt with by the commanding officer, the decision on the charge and prosecution are the responsibility of the Director, but currently some of those cases have to be referred by the investigating service police to the commanding officer, and then from the commanding officer to the Director. They are only referred by the service police straight to the Director if the offence for which there is enough evidence to bring a charge is one listed in Schedule 2 to AFA 2006 or if any circumstances set out under regulations in Part 5 apply to the case. Section 3(1) amends section 116 of AFA 2006 to provide instead for the service police to refer straight to the Director any case where there is sufficient evidence to charge an offence and the commanding officer cannot deal with the case.
	The other main change made by section 3 is intended to deal with the issue that, under section 116, some cases may have to be sent to a commanding officer to deal with, although they are closely connected with a case which must be sent to the Director: for example, where separate offences occurred during the same incident. This can result in separate decisions on whether to prosecute, and separate trials. Section 117(3) of AFA 2006 was intended to deal with this issue of linked cases. It currently provides that, if the service police refer a case to the Director under section 116, any other case of a description prescribed by regulations under Part 5 is treated as also referred . But it has not proved possible to make general provision in regulations about when cases should be linked in this way. It depends too much on the facts of individual cases. Section 3(5) amends section 117(3) so that, instead of cases being deemed to be referred, the service police will be able to refer a case to the Director if, after consulting the Director, they consider it appropriate to do so because of a connection with another case which is referred to the Director under section 116. Section 3(6) amends section 118 of AFA 2006 to require the service police to inform the commanding officer where a case is referred to the Director under section 117(3).
	Section 3(7) applies the Director's charging powers under section 121 of AFA 2006 to linked cases referred to the Director under section 117.