10 U.S.C. § 1556
Section 1556 · Ex parte communications prohibited
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Six v. United States (2008)
Most recently applied in 116 Fed. Cl. 444 - Prochazka v. United States (May 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Secretary of each military department shall ensure that an applicant seeking corrective action by the Army Review Boards Agency, the Department of the Air Force Review Boards Agency, or the Board for Correction of Naval Records, as the case may be, is provided a copy of all correspondence and communications (including summaries of verbal communications) to or from the agency or board, or a member of the staff of the agency or board, with an entity or person outside the agency or board that pertain directly to the applicant’s case or have a material effect on the applicant’s case.
Subsection (a) does not apply to the following:
Classified information.
Information the release of which is otherwise prohibited by law or regulation.
Any record previously provided to the applicant or known to be possessed by the applicant.
Any correspondence that is purely administrative in nature.
Any military record that is (or may be) provided to the applicant by the Secretary of the military department or other source.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Editorial Notes
Amendments
2023—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 118–31 inserted “the Department of” after “the Army Review Boards Agency,”.
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Effective Date
Pub. L. 105–261, div. A, title V, § 543(b), Oct. 17, 1998, 112 Stat. 2021, provided that: “Section 1556 of title 10, United States Code, as added by subsection (a), shall apply with respect to correspondence and communications made 60 days or more after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 17, 1998].”