Estonia — The Government approved the Draft of the Defence Forces Service Act

Today, the Gov­ern­ment of the Repub­lic approved the new sin­gle text of the Defence Forces Ser­vice Act and sent it for hear­ing at Riigikogu. The Act reg­u­lates dai­ly ser­vice of active sol­diers, con­scripts, reservists and per­sons in alter­na­tive ser­vice.

The new sin­gle text of the Defence Forces Ser­vice Act was pre­pared by a broad-based work­ing group led by reg­u­lar mem­bers of the Defence Forces, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of Defence, all ser­vices, the Nation­al Defence League and the Defence Resources Office. 

Under the new Defence Forces Ser­vice Act, per­sons not liable to ser­vice in the Defence Forces will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve in the Defence Forces vol­un­tar­i­ly. For instance, for the first time, women will get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve the mil­i­tary ser­vice vol­un­tar­i­ly, which has not been legal­ly pro­vid­ed by leg­is­la­tion before. 

The new Act will also make the health require­ments to Mem­bers of the Defence Forces more flex­i­ble, in order to take the par­tic­u­lar­i­ties of dif­fer­ent posts into bet­ter consideration. 

Unlike the cur­rent­ly used sys­tem, pro­fes­sion­al mem­bers of the Defence Forces will be employed in ser­vice for a fixed term. In the future, only the mem­bers of the Defence Forces with at least 10 years of active ser­vice expe­ri­ence will be employed with­out a term. 

As anoth­er change, the for­mer Dis­ci­pli­nary Mea­sures in Defence Forces Act will be added to the new Defence Forces Ser­vice Act, form­ing a sep­a­rate chap­ter on dis­ci­pline of the Defence Forces. 

The pack­age of social guar­an­tees of active sol­diers will remain sub­stan­tial­ly the same in com­par­i­son with the cur­rent Defence Forces Ser­vice Act. More­over, the new Defence Forces Ser­vice Act will pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ensure psy­cho­log­i­cal help, social coun­selling and reha­bil­i­ta­tion for fam­i­ly mem­bers of the mem­bers of the Defence Forces who have fall­en or been injured on a for­eign mission. 

The draft and explana­to­ry mem­o­ran­dum of the new Defence Forces Ser­vice Act can be accessed at the infor­ma­tion sys­tem of the Gov­ern­ment drafts at http://eelnoud.valitsus.ee

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion:
Peeter Kuimet
Press rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Min­istry of Defence
Tel + 372 717 0116 / +372 56 56 41 88
peeter.kuimet@kmin.ee

Source:
Min­istry of Defence, Estonia 

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