Ukraine’s law on deferring employees of critical enterprises from mobilization does not exempt them from fines and criminal liability

The bill No. 13335 adopted by the Verkhovna Rada, regarding deferment from mobilization for employees of critically important enterprises who have problems with registration documents, does not exempt them from fines and the threat of criminal liability.

This is reported by the Judicial-Legal Newspaper.

The text of the law states that it concerns, among others, citizens who are wanted for violations of the rules of military registration, legislation on defense, mobilization training, and mobilization. At the same time, it is not specified what kind of wanted status is meant: through the line of the Territorial Recruitment Centers (TRCs) or criminal.

Moreover, by the second reading a clause was added stating that the deferment of military-liable employees from the mentioned category “does not exempt them from liability established by law for violation of the rules of military registration.”

That is, receiving deferment at a critically important enterprise will not automatically mean that criminal proceedings against a citizen will be closed if such had already been opened.

“How to regulate such a situation, when a person is accepted for work but will then be criminally prosecuted, is not provided for by the legislator. It should be noted that when this clause was adopted in the first reading, it was stipulated that deferment does not apply to persons who are in ‘criminal’ search under Articles 336 or 337 of the Criminal Code. That is, initially the legislator tried to provide some safeguard against such a situation, but during the preparation for the adoption of the law as a whole, for some reason decided to abandon it,” the publication comments.

At the same time, the newspaper does not write about the fact that employees can be deferred from service only at defense enterprises, and not at all critically important ones.