Law on “Alternative Military Service” According to the Deputy, “failure law” adopted in 2003 must be urgently amended
07:34, April 1, 2013 | News | Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, Rights of Soldiers/Recruits | Armed Forces
474“Jehovah’s Witnesses”, prisoners of conscious, have been jailed in Armenia since 1993. According to the statistics of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, 33 citizens are currently placed at prisons, court decisions have been made in relation to 16 of them, however, due to appeals which are underway, they are still enjoying liberty.
Although the RA law on “Alternative Military Service” was adopted back in 2003, it isn’t being applied in practice. The striking evidence of it is that within 2004-2012 November 274 “Jehovah’s Witnesses” have been convicted to imprisonment in Armenia.
The human rights defenders bring about law gaps as reasons for this: military oversight is determined in case of alternative labor service which contradicts the religious beliefs of those applying for alternative military service. Moreover, the staff of the RA State Committee on alternative Service is mainly composed of military officials, which opposes to the international standards of the field.
Independent deputy Edmon Marukyan told “Medialab” when the law was on the verge of adoption in 2003, the NGO sector recommended drafting a document which would be in line with both human rights principles and the EC commitments undertaken by Armenia, but those recommendations didn’t have a response. As a consequence, we had “an initially failure law by creating a number of new issues”.
“We simply adopted a document and told the European Council that the law we adopted was in reality a failure law”, reveals the deputy.
In the current phase, the drafts of amendments to the law have already been discussed by the National Assembly, whereby, the Government attempts to “make regulations” in this field.
Edmon Marukyan is convinced the issue of alternative military service refers to solely human rights, while the amendments to the law are first of all for Armenian citizens.
“It is nothing but human rights” the deputy told “Medialab” by addressing the opinions that the proposed recommendations will create national security issues for Armenia.
Nonetheless, unlike Marukyan, there is a great discrepancy of opinions regarding the amendments to the law.
While Hayk Babukhanyan, deputy of the NA RPA faction, talked about “struggles against sects” within the frames of law amendment discussions, Naira Zohrabyan, Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia Party, Chair of the NA Standing Committee on European Integration, qualified the draft law as “very sensitive” and declared that it shouldn’t be adopted under the influence of only European Council, but suggested having parliamentary hearings.
Edmon Marukyan doesn’t understand how the issue of alternative military service can be linked to national security issues as well as how can a person make a statement like “sectarians” from the parliamentary chair.
“Organizations, which have been registered at the MoJ State Register as religious organizations in conformity with the RA legislation and Constitution and their followers, who are called sectarians by us, are meant. I don’t think this issue needs to be addressed with such an approach. They constitute part of our society, they are the citizens of our country”, the deputy tells “Medialab” and asks, “Isn’t it a security issue when conscripts get exempted from military service with the grounds of faked diseases carried out through corruption?”
It should be noted that pursuant to the proposed recommendations, the RA citizen, whose religious beliefs or convictions only oppose to carrying, keeping, bearing or use of arms, can transfer to alternative military service, while the citizen, whose religious beliefs or convictions oppose to military service in general, can transfer to alternative labor service.
The amendments also foresee reducing the term for alternative military service from 36 months to 30 months and the term of alternative labor service from previously used 42 months to 36 months.
Edmon Marukyan believes that in case these amendments get approved they will be enrolled in the protection of their country based on their beliefs. “Although in an alternative manner, it is significantly important to use the potential of those people to the benefit of our country defense as soon as possible”, he states.
The deputy stresses that in compliance with Article 46 of the RA Constitution, every citizen is obliged to take part in the defense of the country, but it doesn’t specify mandatory application of arms. Edmon Marukyan is against ensuring definite number of soldiers in the Army, which, according to him, will create issues based on already existing precedents.
“We have the famous case of Karo Ayvazyan: the boy was raised in the USA, could hardly understand Armenian but he was taken to the army straight from the airport. His grandfather constantly alerted that he had been convicted in the USA and was deprived of the right to carry arms and warned them not to take him to the army. However, he was taken to the army serving in the front line and one day he killed his 5 fellow soldiers, including officers and in the end committed a suicide, this is the outcome of providing merely numbers in the army”, former advocate state this as a vivid example.
Moreover, according to him, if the amendments were approved earlier, neither our taxpayers, nor the citizens denouncing military service based on their regional beliefs would be affected, and Armneia wouldn’t be defeated in the ECtHR.
“It was initially clear that those who didn’t want to serve in the army on the grounds of their religious and conscience beliefs wouldn’t serve in the army at all, hence, they wouldn’t be subjected to alternative or labor service and as a result they appeared at detention facilities.
They were convicted to imprisonment, served their sentence and then their cases were submitted to the ECtHR. We in fact convicted our citizens and held them in detention facilities at the expense of out taxpayers and maybe they learnt bad manners at detention facilities and now the state pays compensation for their illegal imprisonment. I can enumerate this long list of negative impacts”, deputy tells “Medialab”.
If the law amendments are approved, according to Edmon Marukyan, they will immediately outspread over 80 citizens. Some of them are serving their sentence, while, the cases of the remaining citizens are currently either in the court trial or the preliminary investigation phase.
“If the amendments are approved, their conviction will be liquidated, they will also be entitled to receive compensation for illegal jailing. In this respect, the line of negative consequences of initially inefficient law continues non-stop”, notes Marukyan.