Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

25-year-old E. Sh. from Vanadzor invested more than one year and a lot of his nerves to prove the existence of his health problems and to be recognized temporarily unfit for military service.

E.Sh., who was subject to conscription in 2013, was granted a deferral twice until 2019.

On 20 May 2019, he underwent a medical examination in “Saint Gregory the Illuminator” MC, where he was diagnosed with “Superficial antral gastritis. Chronic enterocolitis with moderate acceleration of motor-evacuator function of the small intestine, moderate retardation of motor-evacuator function of the large intestine, dolichosigma. Light hyperbilirubinemia”.

On 23 July 2019, ignoring the conclusion given by the above-mentioned MC, the Central medical Commission gave a totally different diagnosis “Dolichosigma, with retardation of the motor-evacuator function of the large intestine in 72 hours, the intestine is emptied in 96 hours. Moderately expressed neurocirculatory dystonia”. By this diagnosis, E.Sh. was recognized fit for military service with limitation in accordance with RA Government’s decision 404-N of 12 April 2018, Article 30 clause c and Article 28 clause b.

Before that, on 4 July 2019, E.Sh. underwent a medical examination of his heart and the diagnosis was as follows, “Additional chord in the left ventricular cavity. Sinus rhythm with a tendency to sinus tachycardia with episodes of switching from 120-135 beats / min frequency to 50-55 beats / min(with average frequency of heart beats 107 beat/minute). Transient shortening of PQ interval (PQ=100-156 mv). Partial siege of the anterior branch of the left foot of the scapula”. This diagnosis was completely different from the diagnosis given by the double expertise of the Central Medical Commission with the mediation of RA MoD adviser, “Moderate neurocirculatory dystonia, cardiac form”. Nevertheless, E.Sh. was again recognized fit for military service with limitation, this time according to Article 28 clause b of the above-mentioned decision by the Government.  

Disagreeing with the controversial results of the expertise examinations, E.Sh. refused to be conscripted. As a result, a criminal case was initiated against him on the ground of avoiding military service.

2018. Sh. applied to HCA Vanadzor to get legal aid. The Organization’s advocate Hayk Hakobyan  sent letters to RA Military Commissar and MoD to find out how ignoring the conscript’s health problems and conscripting him in that state could be explained. In response, the military commissariat informed that conscripting E.Sh. with limitation was completely in the frame of Article 30 clause c and Article 28 clause b of decision No. 404-N made by the RA Government on 12 April 2018. Moreover, the MoD not only confirmed this but also informed that a criminal case had been initiated against him for avoiding the military service.

Hayk Hakobyan made an appeal to the superior body, i.e. RA Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan claiming to abolish decisions made by the Central Medical Commission on 23 July 2019 and 29 July 2019 and to make a decision on exempting E.Sh. from the obligation to serve a military service.

In his appeal he addressed all the structures through which the conscript had gone to restore his violated rights and failed.

The advocate drew the superior agency head’s attention to the condition that E.Sh.’s problems were, initially, consequences of improper medical examination by the Central Medical Commission, as a result of which the conscript had to undergo numerous medical examinations for a long time and spend money.

According to the advocate, in the conclusion of 23 July 2019, the Central Medical Commission, without any ground, did not take into consideration some important diagnoses made as a result of the examination conducted on May 20, as well as the problems concerning the large intestine. In particular, objective and comprehensive medical examinations of E.Sh.’s health state were not conducted, while those problems would have been discovered during them. According to HCA Vanadzor advocate, the conscript should have undergone expertise examination not under Government’s decision No. 404-N Article 30 clause c, but clause b, based on which he should have been exempted from the military service. Thus, the medical examination of 20 May 2019 gave one diagnosis, while the conclusion of medical examination of 23 July 2019 did not include complete data reflecting his health state. This means that the diagnoses of the two medical examinations were essentially different from one another, and this was ignored in the conclusion of the Central Medical Commission.  It turns out that the Commission’s conclusion of July 23 is incomplete and does not include E.Sh.’s diagnoses confirmed before. Also, it is important that according to the medical examination of May 20, E.Sh. was diagnosed with pathologies of small and large intestines, in case of which, the Central Medical Examination should have conducted a medical expertise not by the above-mentioned decision’s Article 30 clause c, but by clause b. Clause B includes diseases and anomalies of a number of organs, including intestines. Clause B includes  chronic diseases of gastrointestinal tract with moderate disorders of digestion, decrease of nutrition and frequent, long-term exacerbation, while clause c includes consequences of acute diseases of abdominal cavity organs.

In this condition, it is at least strange that the Central Medical Commission examined E.Sh. not by clause B but by clause c and recognized him fit for military service with limitation. In fact, instead of examining and discovering all the facts related to E.Sh. in a comprehensive, full and objective manner, when making the decision, the Central Medical Commission took into consideration only the conditions that were not in favor of the conscript.

With regard to the claim to abolish the conclusion of the medical examination conducted on July 29, it is noteworthy that by the act of July 4, the Central Medical Commission advised E.Sh. to get a neurologist’s consultation, while he did not undergo any neurological examination. This once again confirms the opinion that the examinations conducted by the Central Medical Commission are incomplete and do not represent the full picture of E.Sh.’s health state.  The illegality of the medical examination conclusion of July 29 is also evidenced by the fact that according to the examination that he underwent in the Scientific Research Institute of Cardiology on July 4, he had  “severely expressed sinus tachycardia”. In this state, on 29 July, he appeared for the session of the Central Medical Commission, where he was given a totally different diagnosis, “moderately expressed neurocirculatory dystonia, cardiac form”. By this diagnosis,  E.Sh. was recognized fit for military service with limitation according to the Government’s decision Article 28 clause b. Whereas, according to advocate Hayk Hakobyan, he was supposed to be examined under clause a of the Article, which concerned heart diseases.

This is also evidenced by RA MoD adviser’s mediation to Lori region military commissariat to examine E.Sh. by Article 28 clause a of that decision, which the Central Medical Commission never did.

Advocate Hakobyan reinstated that E.Sh. was subject to be exempted from military service in the concluding part of his appeal and cited clause 44 of the decision made by the Government on 12 April 2018, “conscripts who have been recognized temporarily unfit for military service by the Central Medical Commission for the announced call-up for the first time and have reached the age of 24 during the call-up (except for those who have completed PhD) are exempted from the military service and are subject to enlistment in the reserve of RA armed forces”.

It turns out that the Central Medical Commission violated a number of Articles of the RA Law “On Fundamentals of Administration and Administrative Proceedings” and manifested improper administration. During the call-up of 2019, E.Sh. reached the age of 24, but he had not been recognized unfit for military service based on his health problems during the previous call-ups, despite the fact that he should have been recognized unfit for military service had he been examined by decision No. 404-N Article 30 clause b.

Guided by the provisions of RA Law “On military service and the state of the serviceman”, clause 21 of the Government’s decision 405-N made on 12 April 2018, and based on the aforementioned, HCA Vanadzor advocate Hayk Hakobyan requested the Ministry of Defense to abolish the Central Medical Commission’s decisions of July 23 and July 29, 2019 to recognize him fit for military service with limitation and to adopt a favorable administrative act to exempt him from compulsory military service. It should be mentioned that the body conducting the criminal proceedings ordered to conduct forensic medical examinations in “Heratsi No. 1” university hospital and then also in “Saint Gregory the Illuminator” MC, which confirmed the diagnoses of May 20 concerning the gastrointestinal, heart and eyesight problems. The expertise did not manage to find out when those problems emerged.  

According to HCA Vanadzor advocate Hayk Hakobyan, “Often, conscripts have to spend quite a lot of time to restore their rights. The conscript manages to achieve the restoration of his rights only as a result of the medical forensic expertise conducted in the frame of the initiated criminal case, which is tiring and time consuming”.

In 2020, according to the decision of the Central Medical Commission, E.Sh. was recognized temporarily unfit for military service.