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Draft laws on establishment of military justice system to be returned for consideration after committee's work

The speaker of the parliament believes that military justice should start with the bigger picture, not just the police.

Draft laws on establishment of military justice system to be returned for consideration after committee's work
A session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 16 January 2024
Photo: Press service of the Verkhovna Rada

The draft laws on the establishment of the State Bureau of Military Justice were withdrawn after discussion at the conciliation board. The creation of military justice should begin not with the creation of the relevant police, but with the overall picture, said Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk at a briefing in parliament. He noted that Ukraine must have fair and high-quality military justice. We are talking about a whole range of bodies: military police, the relevant prosecutor's office and courts, and individual lawyers. 

They should deal exclusively with offences in the military sphere.

"Do not start with the military police, because it raises many questions. We need a general logic: the military police deals with this, the military prosecutor's office deals with crimes against such and such subjects, and the military courts deal with this. The overall picture, and then it will be possible to adopt legislative acts one by one,’ Stefanchuk said.

He added that the draft laws could be submitted to the MPs after the committee's work.

"As for the grabbing of people on the streets, we have passed a law that has done everything necessary to ensure that we have an electronic register, including Reserve+. The number of grabbing has decreased significantly because people have to update their data themselves to fulfil their military duty,’ he commented.


MP Andriy Osadchuk added that the draft law on the creation of the military police was removed from the agenda with the wording ‘to continue consultations on this issue’. According to him, the task of creating a military justice system was set by the government of Oleksiy Honcharuk.

"Then the same task was passed to the first government of Shmyhal. It was about creating a system of military justice. Because, if everyone remembers, before the large-scale invasion, there were absolutely terrible situations when civilian courts, for example, tried the military, and this ended in huge, almost international scandals. Unfortunately, nothing was done by either the Honcharuk or Shmyhal governments, and after the large-scale invasion, there were discussions in the Verkhovna Rada about introducing some form of military justice,’ the MP commented. 


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