In January 2025, the Ukrainian media space is actively discussing trials of Ukrainian officers and frontline failures caused, particularly by unauthorized abandonment of duty, AWOL (Absence Without Leave). Both issues are relevant to the discussion of military justice.
Supporters of military justice emphasise that military cases It doesn't matter whether it's generals or soldiers. should be handled by investigative bodies, prosecutors and judges who have a clear understanding of the specifics of military service, statutory relations, and are familiar with the technical aspects of military affairs.
The volume of “military” cases is growing every year. While in 2023, the number of such offences According to the Office of the Prosecutor General. did not reach 30,000, by 2024, nearly 94,000 military criminal offences have been recorded, of which 24,000 have been classified as particularly serious crimes.
This state of play justifiably raises the issue of reviving military justice in Ukraine, which was destroyed during the era of “Regionals”. The main argument for eliminating the military justice system then was the desire to eliminate the Soviet legacy and the belief that the army was unnecessary, as there were supposedly no external threats. Moreover, at that time, Ukraine received specific recommendations from certain institutions of the Council of Europe, including the Venice Commission, for example, on abolishing the military prosecutor’s office. This was despite the fact that most countries in Europe and North America not only preserved their historically established military justice systems but also actively developed them.
Ideas to restore military justice or its individual elements — military police, military prosecution, military courts, and possibly even military Bar — have been circulating since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014. Since 2015, numerous iterations of legislative initiatives on this issue have been registered in parliament. However, it was only in June 2024, in the third year of the full-scale war, that the parliament adopted, in its first reading, a draft law on establishing military police. Earlier this year, with a similar outcome, the Rada considered draft law No. 10301, which proposes introducing judicial specialisation in considering military criminal offences.
So why is the process of restoring military justice progressing so slowly, and why is there no unequivocal support for this movement among experts?
Among the well-founded arguments “against” the immediate full-scale restoration of this branch of justice are the following:
- The lack of trained military legal professionals Prosecutors, judges, investigators. .
- The lack of significant financial support in the face of a critical shortage of resources.
- The risk of abuses within a closed system, especially in the absence of strong democratic civilian oversight.
Military justice must be restored, but this should not happen in haste — it requires a balanced approach and an open, data-driven discussion.
The Agency for Legislative Initiatives proposes precisely this — to first study the topic of military justice in the global context and assess its prospects in Ukraine’s realities. To that end, we present the ALI research — the Green Paper on Military Justice.
The research was conducted within the framework of the project “Parliamentary Accountability of the Security Sector in Ukraine” (PASS Ukraine), which the Agency implements together with the Parliamentary Centre, in cooperation with The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and with the support of Canada’s Foreign Policy—Global Affairs Canada as part of the Peacebuilding Program and stability (PSOPs).
