Improvement of the Military Ombudsman’s activity: experience of reviewing service complaints in the United Kingdom

The article characterizes the features of the experience of reviewing service complaints by the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom (SCOAF) and determines the expediency of certain aspects of this experience for the legal regulation of the Military Ombudsman’s activity in Ukraine. It is established that the British experience demonstrates a high degree of detail in the relations between SCOAF and the Defence Council, the Secretary of State, and other entities. Such detailed regulation acts as an effective guarantee of SCOAF’s legal status, as all situations typical for its activity are algorithmized, which minimizes the possibility of subjective factors influencing the processes of protecting servicemen’s rights. It is determined that the approach of tracking the implementation of every SCOAF recommendation deserves support and implementation. The paper positively evaluates the regulation of various SCOAF report types and the requirements for their structure and content, which unifies law enforcement practice and allows for comparing different periods of activity. Attention is drawn to the conferral upon SCOAF of powers identical to those of the High Court of the United Kingdom for the purposes of investigation, concerning the attendance and questioning of witnesses, and the submission of documents. It is found that the Law of Ukraine «On the Military Ombudsman» contains a large number of general provisions that do not correspond to the principles of legal certainty and do not create clear algorithms for the Ombudsman and heads of military command bodies when reviewing service complaints and making decisions based on their results. It is determined that the problem of the Ombudsman’s interaction with the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, as well as the role of this official in control measures carried out by the Office of the President of Ukraine within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, requires legal regulation. Emphasis is placed on the existence of a contradiction between the duty of law enforcement agencies to cooperate with the Military Ombudsman, providing him with access to materials and documents, and the norms of procedural legislation. The absence of a rule regarding the submission of reports by the Military Ombudsman based on the results of inspections is highlighted. It is concluded that the use of certain elements of the British model in national practice would make it possible to improve the quality of legal regulation in the studied field and strengthen the level of legal guarantees for the Military Ombudsman to exercise their powers.