© 2019. ILLUSTRATION BY PEACE DIALOGUE NGO
In 2018, Peace Dialogue NGO initiated a strategic litigation for the protection of the interests of the military servicemen who graduated from military educational institutions and refused to pursue post-educational contractual military service. On the basis of the application of Armen Sargsyan, a military serviceman released to the Republic of Armenia (RA) Armed Forces Reserve, the Organization had filed an application to the court with the requirement to invalidate the provision of the Government Decree imposed on him and recalculate the amount of compensation for tuition costs. In April 2019, the RA Administrative Court satisfied one of the above-mentioned lawsuits filed by lawyer Artur Sukiasyan.
In the case of refusal of post-educational contractual military service, the military servicemen who have graduated from military educational institutions are obligated to compensate the costs of their tuition fees. The procedure regulating the compensation of tuition fees in the case of refusal of post-educational contractual military service is set out by the requirement of the “Regulation for compensation of the costs of tuition fee by military servicemen graduated from military educational institutions in the case of refusal of post-educational contractual military service” enshrined in the RA Government Decree N393-N of 8 April 2018. Article 3 of the aforementioned regulation defines that the costs incurred by the state for the education subject to compensation are calculated on the basis of costs per students as of the day of the graduate’s release from the military.
According to the provisions of the aforementioned legal act, the military servicemen who refuse to pursue a post-educational contractual military service compensate not the actual amount of money spent on their educational expenses but the amount of money the state is allocating to one military serviceman on the day of the release from military, i.e., the money that has not been spent on them by the State. This does not fit in the logic and regulations of the compensation institution.
The provisions of the Decree N393-N are applied to the graduates of all military educational institutions who resign from military. In order to change the law-enforcement practice in this area and to raise public awareness on the issue, Peace Dialogue NGO came up with such an initiative and took measures directed to invalidating the provision of the court.
The RA Administrative Court made the decision of returning Armen Sargsyan’s request for invalidating the last paragraph of Article 3 of the “Regulation for compensation of the costs of tuition fee by military servicemen graduated from military educational institutions in the case of refusal of post-educational contractual military service” enshrined in the Government Decree N393-N on the grounds that the applicant had missed the deadline for application to the court.
It was taken into account that Armen Sargsyan had been informed about the amount of money subject to compensation for his tuition fee by an official note back on 5 December 2017, hence the last paragraph of Article 3 of the “Regulation for compensation of the costs of tuition fee by military servicemen graduated from military educational institutions in the case of refusal of post-educational contractual military service” enshrined in the RA Government Decree N393-N of 8 April 2018 was first actually applied to Armen Sargsyan in 2017 with the calculation of the amount subject to compensation for tuition costs.
On the basis of the aforementioned, the Court found that the countdown for the timeframe set out in Article 193 Part 1 of the RA Administrative Procedure Code (procedural deadline for application) started in December 2017, the date of application (real act) of the relevant provision of the disputed normative legal act, on the basis of which it was concluded that Armen Sargsyan had missed the procedural deadline for application as per Article 193 of the RA Administrative Procedure Code.
An appeal was filed against the Decision of 15 January 2019 on returning the application. The appeal was submitted on the grounds that the regulations of the normative legal act disputed by Armen Sargsyan concerned the calculation of costs incurred as of the day of release from the military. The aforementioned definition states that the day of the dismissal from military service is set as a basis for the application of the above-mentioned legal norm and the above-mentioned normative legal act may not be applied to the military serviceman earlier than the day of the release from the military. In the case of such a formulation in legal norms, it is natural that the action of the legal act may not apply to the period preceding the day of release from the military. Thus, the court stance that back in 2017, the provisions of the above-mentioned legal norm were applied to the case of a military serviceman released from the military on 24 September 2018is inacceptable.
Armen Sargsyan was released from the military by the Decree N 1569 of the RA Minister of Defense dated 24 September 2018; hence, the day of application of the legal norm on Armen Sargsyan is 24 September 2018. Any other rendition on the date of application of the disputed legal norm to Armen Sargsyan will contradict the formulation “as of the date of release from the military” enshrined in the norm.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned, the RA Administrative Court of Appeals rejected the appeal.
With the next application regarding Armen Sargsyan submitted to the RA Administrative Court, Peace Dialogue NGO requested to obligate the RA Ministry of Defense (MoD) to do a recalculation of the tuition costs subject to compensation and reduce from the compensation amount the money subject to payment for involving the military serviceman in military work on non-working Saturdays during the contractual service.
The RA Administrative Court satisfied the appeal, obliging the RA MoD to do a recalculation of the amount subject to compensation for Armen Sargsyan’s tuition fee and extract from the compensation amount the money subject to payment for involving the military serviceman in military work on non-working Saturdays.
