The lawyer notes that no law in Ukraine prohibits men from traveling abroad during martial law.
A legal issue has arisen in Ukraine because the law does not explicitly prohibit men from traveling abroad, but in practice, the situation is different.
This was stated by the lawyer in an exclusive interview with TSN.ua.
"As of today, there is actually no prohibition on men traveling abroad by law (I have said this repeatedly). Everything happens exclusively in such a manual mode. Moreover, we already have judicial practice on this matter. The court established that there is no prohibition, which should be provided by law. There are no laws in Ukraine that prohibit men from traveling abroad during martial law.
There is a law regulating this issue, regarding the procedure of exit and entry to Ukraine. It contains Article 6, which clearly defines in which cases (not directly tied to martial law, to the gender of a person, whether they are liable for military service or not) a person can or cannot travel abroad," says the lawyer.
According to him, currently, the border service only allows those individuals to travel who are mentioned in the decree of the Cabinet of Ministers. The lawyer reminded that this decree is from 1995 and has been constantly amended since the beginning of Russia’s military aggression.
Who has the right to travel abroad
The decree specifies who has the right to travel abroad.
"First of all, these are individuals who have a wife with a disability of group 3, have either the wife’s parents or their own parents in groups 2 or 1. They are accompanying persons who have been assigned the duty of guardianship. There are individuals who provide constant care for others. Parents of many children, that is, those with 3 or more children... And, of course, in the presence of relevant official errands — this mostly concerns deputies, military personnel, and other categories of local self-government," says the lawyer.
The issue of sailors traveling abroad
"As for sailors — this is quite a painful topic for everyone. In fact, sailors have the necessary documents, but for some unclear reasons, they are not allowed to travel abroad," says the lawyer.
In his view, the system for granting permits for men to travel abroad operates in a manual mode.
"That is, even having all the documents does not give you the right to travel abroad... And no guarantees of traveling abroad will be given to you," the lawyer concluded.