Pro-government MP proposes to raise the maximum age of conscription

YEREVAN, May 12. /ARКА/. Armenian MP from the ruling Civil Contract party Hayk Sargsyan unveiled at a press conference today a set of amendments to the Law On Military Service and the Status of a Serviceman, which call for increasing the maximum age for military service from the current 27 years to 37 years.

They also suggest increasing the basic fee for changing Armenian citizenship for men under 18 to 15 million drams. This is the amount that citizens of Armenia who have reached the age of 27 and evaded compulsory military service can pay to be exempted from criminal liability.

According to the MP, some of the changes are needed to make it more difficult to evade the army, while others are needed to make the service more attractive. In particular, it is proposed to conscript people with health problems, but with restrictions.

Sargsyan also proposed criminalizing the refusal to undergo a medical examination as part of the draft. As an incentive measure, the MP named an increase in the allowances of ordinary military personnel. Currently, ordinary conscripts receive 3,400 drams per month.

In addition, as the MP noted, the changes propose to give 18-year-old conscripts the opportunity to serve less.

"According to the current legislation, 27-year-old citizens and draft dodgers can use this opportunity. Conscripts will have a choice: to serve for 24 months and receive high pay, to serve for 6 months and pay 15 million drams to the state budget, or to serve for 1 month and pay 20 million drams to the state budget," Sargsyan said.

He said that it is also proposed to encourage men to obtain Armenian citizenship before reaching the draft age, allowing them to serve a shorter period or pay the established amounts to the state budget.

"This concerns ethnic Armenians who are not citizens of Armenia. We are talking mainly about citizens of Georgia and the United States living in Armenia. They are currently waiting until they turn 27 to receive Armenian citizenship. Over the past 5 years, 42 thousand men have received Armenian citizenship, but only 7% or about 3 thousand did so before turning 27. Most of them waited for this to avoid compulsory military service," Sargsyan said.

The changes are aimed at increasing the number of military personnel, making military service more attractive, preventing emigration, reducing the number of renunciations of Armenian citizenship, introducing mechanisms to prevent evasion of military service, and criminalizing cases of evasion of military service for alleged medical reasons.

"Analysis of data over the past 20 years shows that only 30-40% of those subject to conscription go to serve. "Due to the long term of service, the geopolitical situation in the region and a number of other circumstances, a large number of citizens evade military service," Sargsyan said.

According to him, in 2020-2024, some 8,721 young men under 18 renounced Armenian citizenship. The largest number of those who evaded military service was in 2020, after the 44-day war (in Karabakh).

"They leave the country under the pretext of treatment or study and do not return until they reach 27 or 37 years of age; prepare documents on the presence of diseases incompatible with military service (about 80% of those exempted from military service)," Sargsyan said.

If all the changes are made, he expects the number of conscripts to increase by 20% per year.

The MP also said that he submitted his proposals to the Ministry of Defense, where they proposed increasing the fees for exemption from service, and to the Prime Minister of Armenia, who accepted them.

"In the near future, the bill will be discussed in the standing Committee on Defense and Security, and then at a plenary session," he said.

On January 16, 2024, the Armenian Parliament approved the law on draft dodgers initiated by Sargsyan, which provides for a reduction in service in the Army or exemption from it in exchange for a certain amount. -0-