Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

According to the RA Government’s decree N 589-N of April 25, 2024, the mandatory military conscription for the private rank was announced from April 29 to July 31, 2024. During the 2024 summer conscription, 

44 conscripts, 

4 persons subject to military registration, 

7 citizens who had not undergone military service in violation of legal requirements, 

and 25 persons registered in the reserve 

applied to  the Organization. 

Below is the summary of the problems recorded by HCA Vanadzor during the 2024 summer conscription. Details in the REPORT. 

• Corruption Risk Mitigation in the Defense System: An attempt is being made to reduce corruption risks by changing the list of illnesses that determine a citizen’s fitness for mandatory military service. Serious health problems among conscripts are often overlooked, and they are found fit and drafted without proper and expensive medical examinations.  

• In the cases initiated on the basis of lawsuits submitted to the RA Administrative Court against the administrative acts, actions or inactions adopted during the regular conscription for mandatory military service, the law does not set such deadlines for the examination of administrative cases and the execution of forensic medical examinations appointed within it, which will enable to have the court decision before the end of the conscription, as it is defined in the cases of the protection of electoral rights. 

3. The change of the list of illnesses deciding the fitness of the citizens subject to mandatory military conscription is not in line with the commitments undertaken by the state in the field of the protection of the rights of conscripts and servicemen. The amendments made in the decree N 404-N of the RA government during 2020-2024 are intended to increase the number of the conscripts for the military service, regardless of the health problems of the latters’, which is a setback from the point of view of the protection of human rights of conscripts and servicemen. 

4. Discrimination is displaced towards the persons having mental retardation, who are being examined according to RA Government Decree 2018 N 404-N amended on April 18, 2024, and are found fit for military service with limitations, while in the past, in the period from July 25, 2019, to April 18, 2024, conscripts with the same problem were found as temporarily unfit for military service. This is evidently a differentiated approach towards the conscripts, and it is necessary to return to the previous regulation of the decree, excluding the manifestations of discrimination.

5. The territorial subdivisions of the MoD Conscription and Mobilization Service, do not  provide referrals to conscripts with all health problems; a complete, comprehensive examination of the health condition of conscripts is not carried out. 

6. Health problems that are of decisive importance for determining the fitness of conscripts for military service are ignored. 

7. The complaints of the conscripts are being ignored, as a result of which “a verbal diagnosis” is provided about the health condition of the conscripts; particularly, the conscripts are being told “that everything is normal” and there is no need to conduct examinations. 

8. Military medical commissions, when referring conscripts for medical examinations, rely on the data on the health condition of the conscript in the medical record of the polyclinic, while the complaints of some conscripts are not recorded in the polyclinics and as a result, some health problems of conscripts remain undetected. 

9. If the conscript appeals the results of the examination of his health condition, the conscript is again referred to the same doctor for a physical examination. Therefore, the objectivity of the medical checkup is rightly questioned by the conscripts. 

10. In cases of disagreement with the results of medical examinations, conscripts are sometimes not subjected to a forensic medical examination within the framework of criminal proceedings initiated on the basis of not being drafted into military service. At the same time, the body conducting the proceedings informs the conscripts that they will undergo medical examinations within the framework of the next conscription. Meanwhile, conscripts can be subjected to medical examinations in this way only in accordance with Article 25, Clause 11 of the RA Law "On Military Service and the Status of Servicemen". "In case the necessary examinations of the health condition of a citizen subject to conscription are not completed during the announced conscription, no examination conclusion is made, the relevant examinations continue after the announced conscription, and the examination of the citizen's health condition is carried out during the next conscription." 

11. The medical commissions of military service have a contradictory approach to the issue of carrying out examinations of military servicemen with their own financial resources. In particular, in some territorial subdivisions, the conscript is informed that he must prove the existence of health problems with medical examinations carried out by his own financial resources; on the other hand, in other territorial subdivisions, they refuse to accept the results of the medical examination carried out by the conscript's own finances, arguing that they may be falsified by the conscripts, "as a result of cooperation with doctors". In fact, there is a situation when the decision on the fitness of a conscript with an actual health problem for military service is made on the basis of incomplete medical examinations, because, on the one hand, the health problem is not revealed during the medical examinations carried out within the framework of the conscription, on the other hand, the results of the medical examination submitted by the conscript are not taken into account by the central medical commission, casting doubt on their reliability.

12. As we have recorded for years, currently a number of medical centers continue to refuse to examine conscript-aged persons with their own financial resources, noting that there is a "clear instruction not to examine male citizens over 17 years of age". 

13. In exceptional cases, when the doctor of any health facility is not initially informed about the fact that the person being examined with his own financial resources is a conscript, he examines the latter, but finding out that the person is of conscription age, states that "he cannot record all the problems he noticed" , because he is concerned that in that case he may be "fired".  

14. Some civilian health facilities carry out examination and treatment of persons of conscription age only on the basis of referrals issued by the territorial subdivisions of the RA CMS of the Defense Ministry. In some cases, conscripts with health problems requiring urgent treatment are refused to be admitted to health facilities even with their own financial resources, urging them to present the referral issued by the territorial subdivisions. As a result, a situation is created when a conscript with pneumonia has to wait for about 20 days in order to receive a referral from the territorial subdivision for the examination.

15. Conscripts having several health problems relate to another manifestation of the issue of improper examination.Thus, after receiving referral for the examination of several health problems, when the conscript demands examining him for all other health problems too, he is informed by the territorial subdivision of the CMS that he already has numerous referrals and there is no need for new ones, not taking into account the fact that the referrals present in the personal record of the conscript are only for the examination of some part of the health problems. Meanwhile, in relation to other health problems, the conscripts are not referred for the  examinations, as a result of which the decision about the fitness is made on the basis of incomplete and non-objective examinations. 

16. When a person has 5 or more illnesses, the focus is placed solely on the number of illnesses, while the potential burden and overall health condition, as well as the possibility of deterioration in the case of multiple simultaneous illnesses in the same person, continue to be overlooked. 

17. In cases of multiple simultaneous illnesses, no legal basis is established for determining a person's fitness for military service. The illnesses present in the person are considered separately from each other, not considering the whole picture of a person's health condition and fitness for the performance of military service duties.

18. During the deferment period granted to conscripts for treatment, they do not receive any medical care. As a result, without any changes in their health condition, conscripts are subsequently found fit or fit with limitations for military service at the next conscription and are conscripted into service.  

19. The creation of ARMED electronic application by the Defence department is considered as an effective means of organizing the conscription process and advancement in the field. The application is designed for the fastest receipt of relevant documents about conscripts’ health conditions. Meanwhile, during the 2024 summer draft, it became evident that the ARMED system has several drawbacks; in particular, the app was working with technical glitches. In the last days of the conscription, several days persistently, the conscripts did not have access to the results of their health examinations. More than a week after the end of the examinations, sometimes even ten days after, the documents related to the conscripts were not uploaded and accessible in the application. Apart from this, the medical records regarding the examinations of the previous years of health condition of conscripts who had previously received deferments from mandatory military service are also not available in the ARMED application. As a result, conscripts are forced to personally visit territorial subdivisions to obtain them, and once again face issues with documents either not being provided or being delayed. 

20. The attitude of certain employees of the RA Ministry of Defense's Conscription and Mobilization Service towards conscripts remains concerning, particularly when informing them about the legal consequences of refusing the military service conscription notice. In particular, several territorial subdivisions (for example, Lori regional subdivision of RA  CMS of the Defense Ministry) “threaten” the conscripts with “rozisk” (criminal investigation) in case of refusing the conscription notice. In other words, the conscripts are not only properly informed about their rights and obligations, but also they face an attitude degrading human dignity, which is not only a violation of human rights but also a consequence; leads the conscript to develop a highly negative attitude towards the military service  and the structure responsible for organizing the conscription.