Constitutional right to substitute military service with alternative civil service: actual problems of implementation

Introduction: with the announcement of partial mobilization in the Russian Federation in 2022, the long - existing problem of insufficient legal regulation of the procedure for alternative civil service has acquired a new urgency. The issue of the possibility of conscription for the mobilization of citizens who have passed alternative civil service and are arriving in reserve has become particularly acute. Materials and Methods: the normative basis of the study consists of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the constitutions of foreign countries, the provisions of domestic legislation on military service, on mobilization training and mobilization, on alternative civil service. The methodological basis of the research was the general dialectical method, methods of deduction and induction, the formal legal method and the method of comparative jurisprudence. The Results of the Study: the study found that the regulation of the procedure of alternative civilian service during mobilisation, martial law or military operations is of a blanket nature and for almost 20 years has not been able to ensure a sufficient level of realisation of the constitutional right to replace military service with alternative service. Changes of the federal legislation in autumn 2022 regulating social relations, which are the subject of the present research, were of point nature. Findings and Conclusions: in order to eliminate the existing drawbacks of the legal regulation of the implementation of the constitutional right to substitute military service for alternative service, the author of this article proposes changes to Federal Law № 53-FZ of 28 March 1998 "On military duty and military service" regarding the definition of categories of citizens eligible for inclusion in the reserve.