Necessity of civil society control and monitoring of the institutional implementation of the right to conscientious objection

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Presentation at the Regional conference on conscientious objection and civilian service "To Europe Through Conscientious Objection and Civilian Service", Sarajevo, 20-22 September 2004

Bart Horeman, War Resisters' International
22 September 2004

20 years ago I was granted the status of conscientious objector to military service by the Netherlands government. Instead of military service I had to perform a substitute service. Ever since I have been active in promoting the right to conscientious objection.

Just for clarity: I was not granted the right to civilian service. Such a right does not exist. There is only the right to be exempted from compulsory military service for reasons of conscience. Consequently, states demand from the conscientious objector to do something else, to perform an alternative service to replace the military service. That is why in many countries, like Spain and the Netherlands, it is called substitute service, because it is linked to the system of compulsory military service. I prefer the word substitute service over civilian service, because in that way it is clear that it is an alternative for military service and linked to the system of conscription.

That the substitute service must be of a civilian nature is obvious and I do not believe that anyone here disagrees with this. But if the government demands conscientious objectors to perform substitute service, then the substitute service must be well organized. Otherwise the rights of conscientious objectors are restricted.

It may seem that conscientious objection is a negative stand, because the conscientious objector refuses to do his military duty. But we always have to stress that in fact this refusal comes from a very positive and peaceful attitude of the conscientious objector, that he values life and does not want to learn to kill. Therefore there is no need to punish the conscientious objector, or to make the substitute service unattractive. The society will only benefit from the substitute service if this positive attitude of conscientious objectors is acknowledged and valued.

The reality of this region - maybe with the exception of Croatia - is that conscientious objectors are often not treated in a positive way. They are seen as traitors, or cowards. If we want to change this, if we want to achieve a shift in public opinion, then it is extremely important that the right to conscientious objection and the requirement to perform substitute service are well implemented, monitored and evaluated.

So we have to make sure that a conscript that announces his refusal to perform military service in a recruitment office is not intimidated by a military person who lies to him and says that this is impossible. How can we prevent that from happening? How can we ensure that the information about the right to conscientious objection reaches every conscript?

Of course the government can give a special training to all recruitment officers. But I believe other measures are possible and maybe more efficient ones. To give one suggestion: there could be one national phone number to help conscientious objectors with their application, and all recruitment officers could be instructed to refer all conscripts that refuse to perform military service to that agency. Or they could be instructed to refer them to NGOs that assist conscientious objectors.

And of course when conscripts are informed about the military service, they must receive information about the right to conscientious objection too. Also there is the possibility to inform conscripts when they have their medical examination.

When there is a system that military recruiters go to schools to inform pupils about the compulsory military service, there should be a right for NGOs to be allowed in schools too. I myself have often been in schools to inform pupils about the possibility of conscientious objection.

In this conference it has often been argued that the conscientious objectors should not be under the ministry of defence. Why?

Let me make absolutely clear that I do not think that a ministry of defence is not competent to deal with applications of conscientious objectors and to organise substitute service. That is not the problem. The problem is that the ministry of defence is not impartial. The task of the ministry of defence is to organise military defence and this may well conflict with the task to implement the right to conscientious objection. And just to avoid any appearance of conflicting interests, it is better and wiser to move this task to another authority. Another good reason to move this task away from the ministry of defence is that other ministries are usually better equipped to organise substitute service and have better contacts with civil society. In my own country this was done in the 1970s and it was a simple transfer: all the employees from the department that organised substitute service moved from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.

Most scientist agree that it is impossible to give a proper judgement about someone's conscience. That's why experts advise not to include this into the procedure to grant CO status.

However, if conscientious objectors are subjected to such examination by a commission, there must be strong guarantees that these examinations are conducted properly and that they do not in any way restrict the rights of the conscientious objector or result in discrimination of the conscientious objector.

One way to include some safeguard is to allow the conscientious objector to bring a confidential person to observe the examination. Another necessity is to have a second opinion: when a commission is not convinced, the conscientious objector should automatically be invited to come to another commission with different members. And the conscientious objector should always have the right to appeal in court against the commission's decision.

The commission that decide on the applications of the conscientious objectors should be as impartial as possible, so again the commission should not be under the authority of the ministry of defence and should not consist of military personnel. The commission should be a reflection of the society, so should be balanced in terms of ethnic groups, religion, age and gender. As conscription is a men's issue, the involvement of women in the procedure of granting CO status is extremely important. In the Netherlands conscientious objectors have been members of the commission.

For transparency it is important the commission should publish an annual report stating numbers of applications, rejected applications, granted CO status etcetera.

When a conscientious objector has to perform substitute service, he may face many problems.

In my experience it has often proved necessary that a conscientious objector could rely on the support of NGOs, when he had a conflict with the institution where he was employed, with the authorities that are responsible for substitute service or even with both of them. For that reason Germany has a system in which conscientious objectors who are employed in the same institution are allowed to elect a representative who can act on behalf of the conscientious objectors. In the Netherlands the Association of COs was recognised by the government as a syndicate of conscientious objectors and was therefore allowed to have three conscientious objectors who performed substitute service as staff in the office of the Association. Norway has a similar system.

In such ways NGOs have the opportunity to monitor and evaluate the system of substitute service. In particular when the system has just started, this seems to be essential. One way to institutionalise this, would be to organise a system of regular meetings between the authorities responsible for the organisation of substitute service and NGOs. In the Netherlands such a system of regular meetings existed in which problems with the implementation of substitute service, problems with individual cases of conscientious objectors and much more could be discussed.

In order to make this interaction between government and NGOs successful, the NGOs must be seen as serious partners who can represent the interests of conscientious objectors. Also the NGOs must be known to all conscientious objectors performing substitute service. In my country it was a standard procedure that when a conscientious objector started to perform substitute service, the authorities would tell him that there were NGOs who could assist him during the period of substitute service.

Last but not least it is important that there is a clear complaint procedure. A suggestion could be to have a special person appointed to deal with all complaints. So if a conscientious objector has any complaint, be it in the application procedure, in his substitute service, in the way the authorities have dealt with his case, he knows where to launch his complaint.

Yesterday I have heard many problems about the implementation of the right to conscientious objection and substitute service. Many of these problems cannot be solved overnight. They will take some time.

To overcome these problems the involvement of all parties is essential. If the expertise and creativity of NGOs is ignored, when legislation and regulations are introduced without the involvement of NGOs, it is quite likely that the system will not work properly. In the situation where there is lack of capacity one suggestion could be to make use of the capacities of the conscientious objectors themselves who have to perform substitute service. In the Netherlands, the government department that was responsible for the organisation of substitute service employed some conscientious objectors in administrative functions. If conscientious objection to military service is seen as a positive stand, rather than the negative, and conscientious objectors are addressed in a positive way, I am convinced that all these problems can be solved and that the society as a whole will benefit from it.

Thank you.

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