New reservation rules will reduce the number of mobilization deferments — lawyer

Proposed changes to the military reservations system could significantly reduce the number of employees receiving deferments from mobilization through enterprises.

This was stated in a comment to the outlet Strana by lawyer Rostyslav Kravets.

The key change concerns the procedure for calculating the reservation quota. Currently, an enterprise entitled to reserve up to 50% of its military-age employees may include in the total headcount those workers who already have a deferment on other legal grounds — for example, fathers of three children or guardians of people with disabilities. Under the proposed model, such employees would be excluded from the calculation base.

The lawyer provides a specific example: if an enterprise employs 100 people, of whom 20 already have a deferment, the current 50% limit is calculated from the total headcount — meaning the enterprise can claim 50 reservations. After the change, the calculation base would shrink to 80 people, and the maximum number of reservations at the same 50% limit would be 40. Thus, the presence on staff of an employee who is already legally exempt from mobilization would no longer increase the number of available reservations for others.

A separate question arises in connection with the planned reduction of the quota for heat supply, water supply, and household waste management enterprises — from 75% to 60%. In Kravets’s assessment, the consequences of this step will depend on whether the changes affect already-issued reservations and what exceptions are provided for enterprises on which the functioning of critical infrastructure depends.

Among the new measures is also the creation of a Coordination Center under the Cabinet of Ministers, which will participate in decisions on the status of critically important enterprises and the approval of reservations. The transfer of additional powers to the new body raises questions for the lawyer about the transparency of the procedure: without a clear oversight mechanism, the centralization of decisions, in his view, may not eliminate abuses but instead create new corruption risks.

As of the end of September, approximately 1.4 million people in Ukraine held a mobilization deferment.