Happy Corps Day to the New Zealand Army Legal Service!
2001.114 WWII Manual of Military Law, National Army Museum Te Mata Toa.
We would like to wish a happy Corps Day to the service men and women of the New Zealand Army Legal Service, a very small and niche Corps of the New Zealand Army.
Formed in 1927 (as the Legal Department before renaming to Legal Service in 1950) the men and women of the Corps have the unenviable task of being the experts of two law worlds; civilian and military. They are the Defence Force’s subject matter experts on a complex and wide-ranging legal world that includes military, administrative, employment, human rights, privacy, contract, resource management, international, and domestic law, and the law of armed conflict. Military law manuals, like what we have in our collection, were an important resource, and probably still are to this day (more up-to-date revisions, of course).
Their cap badge symbolises and embodies their Corps more than perhaps any other Corps’ cap badge in the NZ Army. It features the blindfolded figure of Justice, holding a sword in her right hand and scales in her left standing before a globe of the world. Crossed swords point upwards behind the globe, which is surmounted by the Royal Crest. Inscribed in a circlet is “Army Legal Services”, and a scroll underneath is inscribed with the Corps motto “Justitia in Armis” – Justice in Arms.
From all of us here at the National Army Museum Te Mata Toa, happy Corps Day to the men and women (past and present) of the New Zealand Army Legal Service!
2001.114 WWII Handbook of Military Law, National Army Museum Te Mata Toa.
