PD HAS INITIATED A STRATEGIC LITIGATION
© 2018. ILLUSTRATION BY PEACE DIALOGUE NGO
Strategic litigation on the refusal of post-educational contractual military service by military servicemen who have graduated from military-educational institutions
Peace Dialogue NGO has initiated a strategic litigation for the protection of the right of military servicemen who have graduated from military-educational institutions and refuse post-educational military service. With the involvement of lawyer Artur Sukiasyan, the organization is planning to apply to the court on the basis of one of the military servicemen enrolled in the RA Reserve Military Forces with the request to invalidate the RA government decree provision applied on him.
In the case of refusal of post-educational military service, servicemen who have graduated from military-educational institutions must compensate the expenses of their education. The compensation procedure is set in the RA Governmental Decree N 393-Ն of 8 April, 2010.
For years, on the basis of the provisions of the aforementioned legal act, the military servicemen who refused the post-educational military service had to pay a sum of money corresponding not to the actual expenses of their education, but to the money the state has expended on the education of one military student as of the day of discharge from military.
Such calculation of the reimbursement of educational expenses is established in the RA Governmental Decree N393-Ն of 8 April, 2010, according to the law of “Procedure for compensation of expenses related to education in case of refusal of contractual military service by military servicemen who have completed military training”. As per Article 3 of the aforementioned law, the incurred costs of educational allocated by the state must be calculated in accordance with the cost of educational expenses per military student as of the day of discharge from the military.
In the case of such legal regulations, the military servicemen who want to discharge from military must actually compensate to the state not the amount of money factually allocated for their educational expenses but a sum that the state has not spent on them. This means that during the provision of training for a military serviceman who wants to discharge from military, the state, for instance, may have spent much less money on their food because of the lower quality of the products, while at the time of discharge from military, the military serviceman has to compensate a sum of money exceeding that allocated to him just because at the time of reimbursement the state provides higher quality food to military servicemen. This approach contradicts the requirements of the law, for the performance of which the Governmental Decree N 393-Ն was adopted. Besides, it does not fit in the logic and regulations of damage compensation.
It should be noted that the provisions of Governmental Decree N 393-Ն of 8 April, 2010, apply to the military servicemen graduated from all military-educational institutions. In order to make changes in the law-enforcement practice in this field and to ensure public awareness the organization has come up with such an initiative and is currently taking steps in invalidating the provision stated by the court.
Please follow our webpage to keep the track of the initiative.
Posted 31 October, 2018
