The Ombudsman will not help: the military needs real protection of their rights
Фото: Генштаб
The authorities’ initiatives to create the institution of a military ombudsman will not affect the current situation with violations of the rights of military personnel, since there are no relevant tribunals in Ukraine, and cases are handled by civilian judges who do not understand military realities.
This opinion was expressed on the air of “Pryamoy” by Myroslav Gai, a major in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, head of the “Mir i Ko” charitable foundation.
“I don’t think there is any specific issue related to the ombudsman. It won’t solve the problem, it won’t make it easier, but I don’t think it will create any additional troubles. We generally have a problem with the lack of military justice. This is a problem. And this is not the first year that this has been a problem… We don’t have military justice. Currently, our military are being tried for certain actions or decisions by judges who don’t understand what combat actions are, what decision-making by the military is, under what conditions. They are not guided by military guidance documents, internal documents, etc.,” noted Guy.
According to him, Ukraine should create military tribunals following the example of Israel or the USA. “There is an entire institution there, and judges and military prosecutors understand what a person, a commander, feels when he has to give an order on which the life of either his subordinates or an entire group of troops depends,” the major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine added.
“Therefore, accordingly, until no ombudsman saves the situation, until we have military justice, where, perhaps, it should be civilians, say, lawyers, judges together with some military personnel, with specialists, well, some joint body, perhaps it should be organized. But we have to come to this, because the war has been going on for 11 years, 3.5 of them full-scale. A very large number of problems have accumulated, and the military is not perfect either, to be honest,” explains Myroslav Gai.
As a reminder, on June 3, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the first reading draft law No. 13266, which regulates the creation and activities of the Military Ombudsman , a new state body designed to ensure the protection of the rights and freedoms of servicemen. 287 people’s deputies voted for the draft law.
At the same time, on September 16, during the discussion of bill 13266 on the military ombudsman, Petro Poroshenko stated that this institution must be independent of the presidential vertical , otherwise it will be ineffective. Poroshenko was indignant that such an important bill was being discussed in a practically empty hall without deputies from the monomajority: “the empty hall of the Verkhovna Rada, apart from the opposition factions, demonstrates attention and respect for the protection of the rights of servicemen.”
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