PhD Student of a Polish University Won a Lawsuit Against the Territorial Recruitment Center: Refusal of Deferral Due to Lack of USEDE Certificate Cancelled

The Kharkiv District Administrative Court reviewed the dispute regarding the legality of the refusal by the territorial recruitment center and its commission to grant a deferral from mobilization to a citizen studying full-time at a foreign higher education institution. The court examined whether the absence of a certificate from the Unified State Electronic Database on Education (USEDE) could be an independent ground for refusal of deferral to a person who actually confirmed their status as an education seeker abroad.

Circumstances of the Case

The plaintiff is a full-time student at the University of the West Indies (Polish campus in Warsaw), studying since February 2025. The documents submitted to the case also confirmed that he is obtaining a higher educational level compared to the previously acquired one.

On August 29, 2025, he applied to the territorial recruitment center with a request for a deferral from conscription during mobilization under paragraph 1 of part 3 of article 23 of the Law "On Mobilization Preparation and Mobilization" as a full-time student raising his educational level. The application was accompanied by documents confirming his study and student status.

The commission for considering deferral requests, by protocol decision dated September 2, 2025, No. 9, refused to grant the deferral. The refusal was based on a violation of the document submission procedure stipulated by the Procedure for conscription of citizens for military service during mobilization, specifically the absence of a certificate about the education seeker formed in the Unified State Electronic Database on Education (USEDE).

Disagreeing with this decision, the applicant appealed to the administrative court demanding the cancellation of the refusal and obliging the authorized body to grant him a deferral.

Court's Position

The court noted that paragraph 1 of part 3 of article 23 of the Law "On Mobilization Preparation and Mobilization" guarantees the right to deferral to students of professional, pre-higher, and higher education who study full-time or dual form and are obtaining a higher educational level in the legally established sequence.

At the same time, Procedure No. 560 indeed requires submission of a certificate about the education seeker formed in USEDE. However, the court drew attention to the specifics of the functioning of this electronic database and the regulatory framework in the field of education.

The court established that foreign educational institutions do not actually have access to Ukraine's USEDE and cannot form certificates of the type established by Ukrainian legislation. Therefore, persons studying at foreign educational institutions are objectively deprived of the opportunity to obtain such a document.

The court also emphasized that the register of educational activity subjects within USEDE contains information about Ukrainian educational institutions and does not cover higher education institutions of other countries, including Poland.

From the case materials, the court found that the applicant indeed studies full-time at a foreign university and is raising his educational level. The defendants provided no evidence of violation of the education acquisition sequence stipulated by part two of article 10 of the Law "On Education."

The court separately assessed the defendant's arguments regarding the inadmissibility of the provided military registration document. The court noted that the certificate issued instead of a military ID, although not an independent type of military registration document, if issued by an authorized body and containing information about the person's military registration status, cannot be ignored by the authority and must be evaluated as evidence of the relevant circumstances.

Court Conclusions

The Kharkiv District Administrative Court concluded in case No. 520/32305/25 that the sole ground cited by the commission for refusing the deferral—the absence of an USEDE certificate—cannot be sufficient when the person studies at a foreign educational institution that does not have access to the Ukrainian electronic education database and cannot form the corresponding document.

The court recognized as unlawful and cancelled the commission's decision refusing the deferral from mobilization, recorded in protocol No. 9 dated September 2, 2025.

At the same time, the court did not oblige the commission to directly grant the deferral. Considering the discretionary powers of the authorized body, the court obliged the commission to reconsider the deferral application and submitted documents taking into account the legal conclusions set out in the court decision.

Additionally, court costs amounting to UAH 968.96 were recovered in favor of the plaintiff at the expense of the commission's budget allocations.

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