decorations and medals quite separate from the mainstream honours system. The homelands and their decorations and medals became obsolete when South Africa was reconstituted in 1994. The existing South African civil, military and police awards were continued after 1994. A series of decorations for the former liberation armies was added in 1996. 2002 onwards A new honours system was inaugurated in 2002, as part of the process of creating new national symbols. It was launched with civilian orders, to which a series of military decorations was added in 2003, a series of police decorations in 2004, a series of intelligence service decorations in 2005, and a series of municipal police decorations in 2008. A new table of precedence was issued in 2005, to consolidate all the post-1952 South African and homeland awards (more than 300 of them) into a single system. Civil honours The British honours system was used in South Africa for many decades, and South Africans featured regularly in the semi-annual British honours lists. South Africans also received British civilian decorations for bravery. The nationalist government stopped the conferment of titles and orders in 1925, and discontinued nominations for bravery awards after the Union's independence was recognised in 1931. It established its own bravery award a few years later, the principal award being the King's/Queen's Medal for Bravery (1939–61). When South Africa established its own independent honours system in 1952, the Queen's Medal for Bravery was transferred to it. The medal issued to mark Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 was also ranked as a South African award, because she was Queen of South Africa as well as of the United Kingdom and her other realms and territories. During the 1960s and 1970s, after South Africa had become a republic, the government developed a small range of civil honours to recognise bravery and meritorious service. The most important awards were the Woltemade Decoration for Bravery (1970–88) and the Decoration for Meritorious Service (DMS) (1970–86). The civil honours system was enlarged during the 1980s. A series of five national orders was established in 1986, and a Chancery of Orders was established in the Office of the State President (now 'the Presidency') to administer them. The most important order was the Order of the Southern Cross (1986–2002). The old South African honours were retained for a few years after the Republic was reconstituted as a fully representative democratic state in