Inspection of military medical boards: names of offenders to be made public

Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), has stated that the names of medics who falsified documents confirming unfitness for military service, and those of the draft dodgers who obtained such documents, are to be made public.

Source: Danilov in the 24/7 newscast

Quote: "There is no publicity at the moment… But if the investigating bodies prove a crime has been committed, then the full names of all these doctors will definitely be made public, along with the names of those who received ‘help’ from them. This process is ongoing. Let’s be patient and wait to see the results of this work…

The thing is that they did not even bother… the diagnosis was the same in almost 90% of cases [where someone was registered as unfit to serve – ed.]… All this is going to be checked out legally. Anyone who is indeed unfit for service has nothing to worry about. There will be documents confirming that you were ill and receiving inpatient hospital treatment before.

But if you were healthy from the ages of 18 to 45, let’s say, and suddenly fell ill after 24 February 2022, then we’ll just see what happened - maybe you need help."

Details: All decisions on disability and unfitness for military service that have been made by military medical boards since 24 February 2022 and may be related to corruption violations are to be checked, the President's Office said. Danilov was asked who has been authorised to do this. He answered that the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights is entitled to conduct the inspection.

"The inspection has started. We’ll have the final results in two or three weeks," Danilov said.

Dmytro Lubinets, Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, had previously stated that his institution started checking military medical board decisions back in October 2022.

However, experts involved in the NSDC’s decision-making told Ukrainska Pravda that according to the law, the commissioner reviews the actions of military medical boards in the context of human rights, not the legitimacy of their decisions.

The NSDC has decided to set up special working groups within ministries, other central executive bodies and oblast military administrations to assess the validity of the decisions made by disability evaluation boards and military medical boards regarding disability and unfitness for military service since 24 February 2022.

These working groups are required to conduct an inspection to evaluate the legitimacy of the decisions made by the disability evaluation boards and military medical boards. Specifically, they are to check the causality of illnesses and injuries, the availability of supporting medical documents, the relevant test results, and other documents on the grounds of which a decision was made.

Where there is evidence that there were no grounds for an individual to be registered as disabled by a disability evaluation board, or for an individual liable for military service to be deemed unfit or fit for limited service by a military medical board, the working groups must initiate a review of these decisions in due course.

In individual cases, if significant violations are identified as having been committed during the decision-making process (for instance, where a special status was determined without any supporting documents), the working groups are required to inform law enforcement agencies that there are grounds for those who made the false diagnoses and issued disability documents unlawfully to be held accountable in accordance with the law.

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