PSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION OF MILITARY PERSONNEL IN THE SECURITY SECTOR AS A LEGALLY RELEVANT CONDITION: CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES AND DOCTRINAL LIMITS OF PERMISSIBLE INTERVENTION

Abstract

The article analyzes the psychological rehabilitation of military personnel (and persons equivalent to them) in the security sector as a legally relevant condition, which, in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, becomes particularly relevant and requires doctrinal consideration within the framework of constitutional, administrative, and medical law. The author argues that the mental health of military personnel, particularly in cases of combat trauma, should be considered as an object of sui generis legal protection, i.e., as a unique legal phenomenon. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the legal status of post-traumatic stress disorder as a potential basis for changing the functional legal capacity of a military serviceman, including restricting the latter’s access to combat missions, management functions, and the handling of weapons. At the same time, the study provides a doctrinal justification for the need to classify PTSD as a legally relevant condition that can serve as a basis for applying a special legal regime in the security sector. A separate analytical part of the work is devoted to the legal aspects of the compulsory application of psychological rehabilitation to military personnel who have returned from captivity. The author attempted to define the limits of permissible interference in a person’s psycho-emotional sphere and its compliance with the principles of proportionality of state intervention and international human rights standards. It is argued that rehabilitation measures for persons who have survived torture, isolation, and other forms of ill-treatment should be carried out according to a separately defined procedure that takes into account the balance between official necessity and the right to autonomous expression of will. At the same time, the article contains elements of a comparative legal analysis of foreign models of regulating the mental rehabilitation of military personnel, which makes it possible to identify the structural components of effective legal support in legal systems with a high level of institutional adaptability. The results obtained are of practical importance for the formation of normatively coordinated approaches to the legal regulation of psychological rehabilitation of military personnel who have suffered combat trauma. The proposed theoretical provisions, conceptual and categorical apparatus, and conceptual models can serve as a basis for the development of special normative acts in the field of defense, health care, and social protection, as well as for the improvement of administrative procedures regulating rehabilitation measures in the security sector.