RESPONSIBILITY OF MILITARY PERSONNEL FOR UNVOLUNTARILY LEAVING THE MILITARY UNIT OR THE PLACE OF SERVICE UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF THE STATE OF MARTIAL: SEPARATE OPINION REGARDING AMENDMENTS TO THE LEGISLATION

Abstract

The article considers innovations to the national legislation in terms of adminis-trative and criminal liability for military offenses related to the voluntary abandon-ment of a military unit or place of service. The purpose of the study is to outline the theoretical and applied problems of legislative changes in the part of excluding the circumstances of the commission of certain military administrative offenses in the con-ditions of martial law. Attention is drawn to those problems of law enforcement practice that arose dur-ing the registration and consideration by courts of military offenses (arbitrary aban-donment of a military unit or place of service) in conditions of martial law - the formal lack of a unified approach to the qualification of these military offenses - which caused the need to make certain changes to the legislation on administrative and criminal lia-bility of military personnel. At the same time, on the basis of a thorough analysis of administrative and crim-inal legislation, legal statistics and law enforcement practice, a number of critical re-marks of a scientific and applied nature are expressed regarding certain innovations: the prospect of overloading pre-trial investigation bodies, the prosecutor's office and courts with criminal proceedings based on the facts of military offenses, which may negatively affect quality and timeliness of consideration of this category of cases; the qualification of all cases of arbitrarily leaving a military unit or a place of service in conditions of martial law without taking into account the circumstances and duration of a serviceman's absence from service under criminal regulations violates the princi-ple of proportionality of responsibility; provided that these acts are registered and ex-amined in the order of administrative-delict proceedings (which continues to take place in practice due to the insignificance of the offense), taking into account the cur-rent legal regulation, in fact, the opportunity to provide an appropriate legal assess-ment of these offenses in the conditions of martial law, which in fact has an increased public danger, compared to typical situations.