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Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor carries on protecting the rights of serviceman A. Grigoryan.

Note that back on September 1, 2015, he submitted a report to the commanders requesting them to release him from his position at military unit N of the RA Defense Ministry and discharge him to the reserve of the RA Armed Forces and he has received no response so far.

First A. Grigoryan and then HCA Vanadzor applied to RA Minister of Defense S. Ohanyan to process this issue. Having received no response, on November 24, 2015, the Organization applied to RA Prime Minister H. Abrahamyan requesting him to stop the inaction by the RA Ministry of Defense.

The letter above also remained unanswered. Then, on January 16, 2016, A. Grigoryan filed a claim with the RA Administrative Court on compelling the RA Defense Ministry to issue a decree on discharging him from military service with reference to Article 48 of the RA Law on Principles of Administration and Administrative Proceedings stating that if an administrative act is not adopted by an administrative agency competent to adopt such act within the terms prescribed by law following administrative proceedings initiated based on relevant application, the administrative act shall be deemed adopted and the applicant may start exercising relevant right.

In its response to the claim dated February 29, 2016, the RA Ministry of Defense noted that according to Article 51(3) of the RA Law on Military Service, ”the servicemen without any non-served term as noted in Para. 10 and 11 of Part 1 of this Article and as prescribed by the Law on Compulsory Military Service, as well as the servicemen subject to discharge from the post-training contract military service shall compensate the costs related to their training under the procedure established by the Government”, and therefore, A. Grigoryan was subject to discharge if he compensated the amount of 2,632,912 AMD for the costs related to his officer-training course.    

Despite his disagreement with the amount above, A. Grigoryan nevertheless paid it hoping that this would provide a final solution to the problem.

Note that on March 21, 2016 A. Grigoryan had taken a loan from the bank to pay the amount set by the RA Ministry of Defense; the first repayment date of the loan is scheduled in some days, and A. Grigoryan still does his service. No decree on his discharge has been issued so far.

It should be added that a staff member of HCA Vanadzor sought to obtain clarification of the issue from the RA Ministry of Defense; however, no one answered the phone at the relevant division of the Department.