This is not the first time the Voennoye Obozreniye website has raised such a topic as yet another refusal of the Russian Defense Ministry to call for military service young people from the North Caucasian republics. At the same time, there was no clear explanation from the Ministry of Defense about the purpose for which the conscription of citizens of Russia is limited, but the reason is known to everyone even without additional spreading of thought along the tree. The point is in the fight against army hazing, or, more simply, with bullying. The Defense Ministry believes that the refusal of the "services" of the guys from the Caucasus in terms of their service in the ranks of the Armed Forces will help bring order to the Russian army. In addition, there is a version that the refusal is connected with the unwillingness of the Ministry of Defense to "train" militants in its ranks, who for some reason are stubbornly seen only among representatives of Caucasian nationalities.
This vision of solving the problem has a fairly large number of supporters both among the military and among those who are also interested in this kind of problem. Supporters of the ministerial decision are confident that the refusal to draft Caucasian youth into the ranks of the Russian army will help remove problems and protect themselves from conflicts that have often surfaced recently in connection with hazing, and in addition, turn off the "tap" through which comes living force for gang formations.
The prosecutor's office reports that over the past year there has been a decrease in the incidence of bullying in army units. And many people familiar with the situation firsthand decided that the matter had really moved off the ground, and the Russian army was getting closer to the civilized version. However, the reluctance of the Ministry of Defense to call on young Caucasians (even if no one perceives this term as a kind of disdain - just used for brevity) may well provoke not only positive options related to discipline in the troops, but also a frankly negative side of the legal nature.
Yes - the RF Ministry of Defense has made its decision, and clearly does not intend to abandon it. Yes - the prosecutors saw a decrease in the cases of army non-regulation precisely after the refusal of the Ministry of Defense from "Caucasian services." It would seem, what more could you want. But it would be strange to argue that such a ministerial step is, in fact, unlawful. Article 23 of the Federal Law "On conscription and military service" directly indicates the categories of citizens of the Russian Federation who are not subject to conscription. And this article does not say anything about the fact that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has the right to add positions that are convenient for the Ministry to the list, which includes convicted, unhealthy, alternative men and some other categories of persons of draft age who are exempt from service.
It turns out that from the point of view of the layman, the refusal to draft Caucasian conscripts is a blessing, but from the standpoint of the legal field, such a refusal is completely unacceptable. It would seem, why engage in literalism and refer to some Federal laws, if everything went, as they say, according to plan. But Russia is trying to position itself as a legal state with the rule of law. In this case, guided by the usual logic, one of the following facts must be recognized:
1. Russia is not a rule-of-law state neither in practice, nor even on paper, because even federal ministers allow themselves to observe the saying that the law is like a drawbar;
2. Russia is still a law-governed state, but then it is worth investigating the decision of the Ministry of Defense related to the "Caucasian precedent" for legality.
There is a third option: to take, and write down in FZ-53 of 1998-28-03 a line that the ministers are free to supplement this law with clauses convenient in certain cases …
In today's situation, any professional lawyer is able to find blunders in the decisions of the main military department. At the same time, young people who are not drafted from the Caucasus region may have far from unfounded claims: they say, why are representatives of some nationalities being drafted into the army, and representatives of others not, although the Constitution says about the equality of all Russians before the law. Moreover, Anatoly Serdyukov's ministry is creating a completely negative precedent: it turns out that the Ministry of Defense refuses the services of those conscripts who cannot connect their national character with army discipline. In this case, representatives of other nationalities may well go along the "Caucasian path", who will decide that to cancel the draft from their republic, it is enough just to arrange unbridled non-regulation in the military units. You see, the main military department in a couple of years will decide to abandon the draft and new "bad guys".
In fact, the very discriminatory decision of the Ministry of Defense regarding the refusal to draft young people from the North Caucasus, no matter how significant from a disciplinary point of view, is only direct evidence that the Ministry does not find any other ways to establish discipline in the army. Instead of solving the problem for real, the main military department decided to simply build a kind of "Berlin Wall", fencing off "unwanted" conscripts with a strange design that does not even fit with the law.
Guided by the logic of the Russian Ministry of Defense, this experience can be transferred to other areas of activity: for example, to suspend the treatment of violently insane in special medical institutions, because they literally create a bunch of problems for the medical staff - they are rowdy, you know … You can refuse to teach those schoolchildren who often show antisocial behavior - you see, the teacher will become calmer to work … And then some of the State Duma deputies will have to be asked, as they say, because their behavior sometimes also raises many questions.
In general, the decision of the Ministry of Defense is more than controversial, and it worries here not only and not even so much the decision as such, but the fact that it was made without the presence of any legal basis, not to mention the fact that such serious things need to be made for public comment.
