Students in Georgia will no longer be exempt from military service

Students in Georgian military

According to Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Grigol Giorgadze, the ministry is preparing a new “Defense Code” that will require compulsory military service for all conscripts, including students, who will be randomly selected through an e-program. At the moment, student status is automatically grounds for deferment from military service.

According to Giorgadze, the ministry will put students in a better position than other conscripts and will offer various conditions for compulsory military service.

“If we need to recruit 7,000 recruits, and we recruit 6,500 non-students, we will get the remaining 500 from among students,” Giorgadze stated.

He also explained that students will have the opportunity to choose a 6-month, 8-month, 11-month or 4-year program with training:

“The four-year program means that for four years, once a year, in lieu of vacations, they will undergo retraining, and four years later, when they receive a diploma, they will be enrolled in the reserve. This program is designed in such a way that students acquire the necessary basic knowledge and skills.”

The new code was discussed in the Georgian parliament on February 27. Conscripts called up for military service will serve only in the structures of the Ministry of Defense and will not have to work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the state security service or prisons.

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In addition, under the new code, no religions will be able to use discretionary conditions for deferment from compulsory military service.

At a government meeting on December 12, 2022, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stated that the loophole in the legislation would be eliminated, and the “fictitious religious organizations” through which youth evaded the army would be closed. In particular, Garibashvili mentioned the Biblical Freedom organization founded by the Girchi opposition party.

“This is a harmful, anti-national, anti-state program invented by Girchi, which actually confused the youth by offering them an alternative service. We know it was a sham religious service. We cannot turn a blind eye to this, and it is our duty to resolve this issue,” the Prime Minister said.

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“Christian, Evangelical, Protestant Church of Georgia – Biblical Freedom” is a religious organization registered by Girchi in March 2017. Since then the organization has given about 50,000 young people a priest’s certificate with which they could avoid compulsory military service.