APPEALS COURT PROTECTS RIGHT OF BELIEVER TO ALTERNATIVE SERVICE
Institute of Religious Liberty, 27 February 2015
A Dnepropetrovsk provincial court of appeals confirmed the verdict of acquittal for a believer who during conscription asked to be sent to alternative service.
The court's decision was announced on 26 February after the second session in the appellate instance, the Institute of Religious Liberty reports.
Thus the court of appeals did not agree with the conclusions of the prosecutor's office of Novomoskovsk of Dneptopetrovsk province, which sought the conviction of a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious society for evading military service. Representatives of the prosecutor's office are sure that the law on conscription clearly defines the categories of people who may be exempted from military duty, and believers are not on that list.
At the same time, the defense of the defendant appealed to the norms of part 4 of article 35 of the Ukrainian constitution and the practice of the European Court for Human Rights, where the right of believing citizens to substitute alternative (noncombatant) service for military duty is established.
The decision of the appellate court has already taken effect. But in light of the prosecutor's persistence in this case, one may expect that the prosecution will take advantage of the designated period of three months for submitting an appeal in the Supreme Specialized Court for Review of Civil and Criminal Cases.
"In this case, the norms of the Ukrainian constitution should be applied as norms of direct action, even in the presence of inconsistencies in other legislative acts. Consequently, the judicial decisions of the appellate and cassation instances are quite predictable," Maksim Vasin, the executive director of the Institute of Religious Liberty, thinks.
As the institute reported, in November 2014 a court of Novomoskovsk acquitted the believer and confirmed his right to alternative service. The first session in the Dnepropetrovsk provincial court of appeals on this case was held on 19 February 2015.
In March 2014 the Institute of Religious Liberty published on its website an explanation regarding conscript training and the summons for military call-ups of believing citizens. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 March 2015)
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