The government’s revised draft law on mobilization contains provisions that violate Ukraine’s Constitution, chief Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on social media Feb. 6.
The government’s revised draft law on mobilization contains provisions that violate Ukraine’s Constitution, chief Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on social media Feb. 6.
I don’t know the Ukrainian constitution, but these objections sound a little weak on the surface to me. Haven’t Ukrainian citizens subject to conscription already been restricted from leaving the country? And registering an account with the government hardly seems like a violation of privacy.
I’m no Ukrainian constitutional lawyer, but taking a plain-English read, I’m skeptical that Article 17 explicitly prohibits use of the military to prevent people from leaving.
https://ccu.gov.ua/sites/default/files/constitution_2019_eng.pdf
Okay, but is it a right? Well, there’s Article 33:
The “with the exception of restrictions established by law” seems like it’s okay for the Rada to impose restrictions on that right. That is, it’d just prevent the executive portion of the government from doing that without legislative permission. And according to the article, Zelenskyy is asking the legislature to pass this, so it seems kinda like he’s taking the correct route.
And I kind of doubt that this was just overlooked.
Yeah, but the devil is in the details there. I can’t imagine just having an account being an issue, but maybe there’s some sort of case law that the government can’t require people to notify people of their current location or something, and it might be that this is required.
One more point – the Ukrainian constitution also provides that certain rights can be restricted when martial law is in force, in Article 64:
Article 17 is not in the “cannot be restricted” list.
Martial law has been declared since about the start of the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Ukraine
I would assume that the government is going to maintain martial law for about as long as Ukraine is fighting the war, and as long as that is the case, I believe that Zelenskyy is probably acting in accord with the constitution just on the above point alone.
And while I’m not going to track down the source of all of the privacy objections – several reasons, including treaties, were mentioned – one thing that was referenced was the Ukrainian constitution. The only reference to privacy is in Article 31 (well, and maybe you could count Article 32, for storing data about people), which also is not in the “exempt from being restricted under martial law” list.