On Thursday 13 July, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the “Regulation on the Procedures by which Citizens shall be Registered, Listed, Selected and Called up for the State Defence Service, and the Knowledge and Skills to be Acquired in the State Defence Service”.
The new Regulation defines the procedure by which the Ministry of Defence shall carry out registration, recording and conscription of citizens who have volunteered to the State Defence Service, as well as citizens who have been recruited based on the selection principle. The Regulation also describes the set of theoretical knowledge and practical skills to be acquired during the State Defence Service.
The Regulation also provides for the procedure by which the Ministry of Defence shall issue statements regarding the conscription of a citizen to the State Defence Service or postponement of the conscription, as well as regarding the type of service and retirement.
The registration of recruits will be carried out by the Ministry of Defence and the register will contain information on all Latvian citizens – men who were born after 1 January 2004 and have reached the age of 17. In the event that a recruit does not acquire education at the secondary level, he or she is subject to conscription immediately after reaching the age of 18.
Upon issuing the order of the Minister for Defence regarding the conscription to the State Defence Military Service, the Ministry of Defence will inform the public about the deadline by which it is possible to voluntarily apply to the State Defence Service.
Information on the deadline for application and other issues related to the State Defence Service will be published on the single recruitment platform klustikaravirs.lv.
After the completion of a voluntary application to the service, and assessing the historical data on the recruits who do not comply with the requirements laid down by the State Defence Service, the number of recruits to be randomly selected and the date of selection will be determined by the order of the Minister for Defence.
The recruits will be registered randomly by administrative territory, by assigning each citizen a serial number in the relevant administrative territory. The selection will be carried out using a random number generator, which will arbitrarily select a certain number of serial numbers. All selected serial numbers will be sorted randomly.
Representatives of the mass media, non-governmental organisations and the public will be able to apply for participation in the selection in the capacity of observers.
Information about the conscription to the State Defence Service and a summons to the health examination will be sent to the official electronic address or address of the declared place of residence of the randomly selected recruits. Upon receipt of this information, the selected citizens will be obliged to fill out the questionnaire in the platform klustikaravirs.lv within five working days.