The court ruled that the Russians must prove the inability to carry out military service because of their beliefs

A citizen of the Russian Federation must prove that he cannot perform military service due to his convictions if he plans to perform alternative civilian service. This is stated in the message of the press service of the Third Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction, published on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Russian appealed to the district military registration and enlistment office with a statement in which he asked to replace his military service on conscription with an alternative civilian service. He referred to his convictions, which were contrary to military service.

The draft commission refused him for the reason that they missed the deadline for submitting such an application and the filing procedure.

The citizen filed a lawsuit in which he asked that the decision of the draft commission on his conscription for military service be recognized as illegal.

The court of first instance dismissed the plaintiff. The Supreme Court recognized this decision as legal.

The courts found that the procedure for filing an application to the military registration and enlistment office for the replacement of military service with an alternative one did not meet the requirements of the law “On Alternative Civil Service”, where clause 1 of Article 11 specifies the deadline for submitting such an application.

In addition, the law provides that a citizen must substantiate that the performance of military service is contrary to his convictions or religions, as indicated in the decisions of two courts.

Then the plaintiff tried to cancel them on cassation.

The Judicial Collegium for Administrative Cases of the Third Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction noted that in order for a citizen to exercise his right to replace military service on conscription with alternative civilian service, it is not enough just to declare that military service is contrary to his convictions.

The court stated that “the statement that prompted him to petition for the replacement of the conscription service with an alternative civilian service” the citizen must “substantiate, provide facts that testify to well-formed convictions, and also provide evidence of his arguments.”

In this case, the Russian did not provide such information when registering for military service and did not inform the military commissariat of his beliefs.

The court upheld the plaintiff’s cassation complaint and left the decisions of the lower courts unchanged.