New Sentencing Measures for Avoiding Military Service

Currently, there is unfortunately an observed increase in cases of avoiding conscription for mandatory military or alternative service and training gatherings. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Justice Gevorg Kocharyan during a session of the State Legal Committee while discussing the draft law on amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia.

According to him, during 2023, a total of 1,499 criminal proceedings were initiated under Articles 461 (avoiding declared conscription for mandatory military or alternative service) and 462 (avoiding training gatherings) of the Criminal Code, while in 2024, a total of 1,779 criminal proceedings have already been initiated.

“Unfortunately, we do not yet have statistics related to the current year. This indicates the need for a reconsideration of criminal policy and the necessity of implementing a stricter punitive policy against those who commit the mentioned acts. The draft proposes to tighten the criminal liability for actions stipulated in the first part of Article 461 and the first part of Article 462 of the Criminal Code. Specifically, the proposed amendment replaces the punishment for avoiding military service in Article 461 from 2-5 years of imprisonment to 3-6 years of imprisonment,” said the deputy minister.

He noted that in the article regarding avoiding training gatherings, the proposed sanction for fines would increase from a maximum of 20 times the monthly income to 15-30 times the monthly income, while the maximum allowed imprisonment term would change from two years to one to three years.

“We believe that such changes may contribute to a reduction in cases of avoiding declared conscription for mandatory military or alternative service and training gatherings. Furthermore, if the draft is adopted, the first part of Article 461 of the Criminal Code will become a serious crime, which will allow law enforcement authorities to implement various operational intelligence measures and secret investigative actions in cases of avoiding mandatory military or alternative service or the declared conscription, which is currently not possible as it is classified as a medium grave crime,” he added.