In Star Trek (not the best guide to law), a Starfleet Board of Inquiry equivalent is shown with the presiding officer striking a tiny bell to indicate that proceedings were commencing or adjourned (like an American, though not English, civilian judge might use a gavel).
Have Boards of Inquiry or courts martial in either the US Navy or the Royal Navy (the inspirations for Starfleet) ever used such bells, and do they use them today? (Also, if these bells are real, do they have a name?)
In the Royal Navy, the current mandated ceremony is:
- On the day on which a court-martial is to sit, the Union Flag is to be hoisted at the peak or at the yardarm as appropriate and a gun is to be fired when colours are hoisted, or at the time the signal is made if the court is ordered to sit immediately.
- The Union Flag is to be dipped between each separate court.
- Should the court sit for more than one day, the Union Flag is to be hoisted and a gun fired each day when colours are hoisted—or at any time previously that the court may resume its sitting. The Union Flag is to be hauled down when the court adjourns for the day.
- Where local conditions dictate that that the firing of a gun be inappropriate it may be omitted with the permission of the local senior officer.
This is paragraph 9143 of Chapter 91, "Standards, flags and colours" in the Queen's Regulations for the Royal Navy, 2017 edition. I conjecture that this comes from the regulation recorded back in the first edition of 1731, which says in its courts-martial chapter:
IX. When Sentence of Death is to be executed upon any Criminal, Notice is to be first given from the Ship by a Signal, and firing a Gun; upon which, the Captains of all the Ships present shall summon their companies upon Deck, to be Spectators thereof, and shall make known to them the Crime, for which the Punishment is inflicted.
Firing the gun is commonly known as the "rogue's salute". Capital punishment is no longer used in the armed forces, but perhaps some relic of it has survived in the flag-and-gun ceremonial, translated from sentencing to the start of proceedings. In practice, the gun is unlikely to be used these days, since courts martial typically take place in fixed establishments. The centre in Bulford is right next to housing and so those "local conditions" apply.
Royal Navy ships absolutely do have bells, which are used ceremonially. Since former regulations called for courts martial to be held in the most "publick Place of the Ship" (paragraph III of the 1731 text), that could mean on deck near the bell, and one could imagine a ceremonial strike of that bell to get everyone's attention. But I don't know if that was actual practice at the time. The miniature bell in the picture is too small to be a real ship's bell, but perhaps it creates an aura of Navy-ness.
Military judges in the UK (Navy or otherwise) do not use gavels, just like in civilian courts. They use their voices when it's time to declare something.
