Georgia

* The population figure above has been adjusted to allow for the two secessionist areas which are outside the control of the government, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, combined population about 300,000. Both maintain their own armed forces, quite apart from the Russian troops stationed there, and impose conscription without any provision for conscientious objectors, but we have no further details.

Current situation & recent developments

Feedback from organisations

As reported by EBCO’s Georgian member, Act for Transformation^[1]:

After a long parliamentary discussion, Georgia adopted a new defence directive in September, which primarily regulates the duration and structure of military service. The new law is primarily in response to the practice of the Girchi Party, which in recent years has enabled young men to avoid military service by granting them easy access to the status of priests. The conservative parties and the Orthodox Church saw this as a scandal that they wanted to eliminate.

Military service is compulsory for young men in Georgia between the ages of 18 and 27. Around 30,000 soldiers serve in the Georgian army and there are 120,000 reservists who are regularly called up for military exercises. Every year around 4,000 conscripts are drafted. The new law applies from January 1, 2025. The length of compulsory military service will be shortened. Instead of serving 12 months, recruits will serve in one of three shorter programs: 6 months service in a combat unit; 8 months service in the security subdivision; 11 months service in junior command positions and designated specialty areas.

From January 1, 2024, responsibility for registering and mustering young men will be transferred to the military authorities. Previously this was in civilian hands at the regional administration. The process is to be digitalized so that no one can avoid being recorded. There will no longer be any exemption from military service for students, who are required to take part in a one-month basic training course during the summer holidays. They can then have their military service deferred for four years if they are 23 years old or younger. The fee for deferring the call-up will be increased from 2,000 GEL to 10,000 GEL (around 3,500 euros). Only a one-time deferral of one year is possible. Previously, you could defer your service twice by 18 months. With an average wage in Georgia of around 500 euros, it is clear that most young men can no longer afford this fee. Only rich families can buy an exemption.

Another important change is the abolition of the exemption for priests. The Girchi Party had founded a religious association and formed small “communities,” for which they issued the young men certificates as priests. In recent years, around 3,500 men have thus obtained exemption from compulsory military service, some figures say 30,000. Girchi (“fir cone”) is a libertarian political party that advocates for individual rights and freedoms and opposes conscription. On March 11, 2023, Girchi organised a large-scale public protest against the government's attempts to expand conscription.

This possibility should now be prevented in the future. At first it was said that all young men who were priests would now have to do military service. The Round Table of Religions was repeatedly assured that this would also apply to Orthodox priests and that they would not receive any privileges, but in the end, an exception was made for Georgian Orthodox priests who remain exempt from military service. With immediate effect, the clergy of other religious communities become liable for alternative civilian service, as have Jehovah's Witnesses in the past. The duration of community service will be longer than that of military service - 18 months until January 1, 2025 and 12 months thereafter. It may be noted that the duration thus increases from one-and-a-half times to twice the minimum duration of military service.

According to the new law, performing alternative civilian service replaces the fulfilment of compulsory military service. Civilians who refuse military service as an expression of the right to freedom of conscience, thought and religion can be called upon to perform civilian alternative service in peacetime. The state commission determines the nature and place of such service in coordination with civil organisations. The place of residence should be taken into account here. Community service serves the common good and there are positions in the emergency services and fire brigade, in the environmental sector or in construction and construction companies, as well as in agricultural businesses. In the social sector, this can contribute to the care of older people, people with disabilities, the homeless and other socially disadvantaged people.

However, the implementation of a civilian alternative service has not yet taken place in practice. An exact number of deployment locations and people doing community service cannot be found. The Ministry of the Environment is actually responsible for this, probably with regard to environmental protection sites. But there is neither a registration of deployment sites nor any known statistics about people doing community service. There are also no openly known cases of criminal proceedings. The criminal prison sentences primarily concern soldiers who were absent from duty without permission. Objectors who have applied for community service have not yet been imprisoned.