On September 23, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation clarified whether the partial mobilization of IT specialists concerns. The law firm Semenov&Pevzner explained why these statements should be approached with caution.
The text was prepared by Ekaterina Gubayeva, a lawyer at Semenov&Pevzner.
What kind of clarification?
The essence of the explanation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is that “certain categories of citizens with higher education and working in key organizations in the field of finance, IT and the media are exempt from conscription.”
Important: exemption from partial mobilization does not occur automatically. The heads of the relevant organizations must submit lists of citizens in the prescribed form to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
As for the explanations from the Ministry of Finance, then, according to him, if “a specialist in finance, IT or the media has already received a summons, then he should take additional documents with him to the military enlistment office.”
By documents we mean the following list. It is implied that if a specialist meets the criteria for deferral from mobilization, then he will receive it at the military enlistment office (and if he does not receive it, then he needs to apply with a package of documents to the Ministry of Finance, which will process the documents and then send them to the Ministry of Defense).
Legal assessment of clarifications
1. We are not talking about complete exemption from mobilization, but about postponement
Judging by the wording of the appeal of the Ministry of Defense, it implies booking specialists. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the procedure itself: lists of employees from key industries are submitted in advance to authorized government agencies to support the organization’s activities during mobilization.
Citizens subject to booking are exempt from conscription for military service on mobilization and subsequent conscription in wartime for the duration of the granted deferral.
2. Deferral is given only to people with specialized education
The explanations of the Ministry of Defense speak of citizens “with higher education in the relevant specialties and areas of training.” Therefore, the postponement does not apply to those who work in these areas, but do not have a specialized education.
3. The Federal Law “On Mobilization Training and Mobilization in the Russian Federation” does not give the Ministry of Defense the right to add new grounds for postponement
The law provides that the organization and procedure for booking citizens staying in reserve for the period of mobilization and for wartime are determined only by the specified Federal Law and regulatory legal acts of the Government of the Russian Federation.
It seems that the placement of information by the Ministry of Defense on social networks and on its website has no legal force, since such explanations must be issued in the form of a decree or order of the Government.