Administration by Giving Verbal Orders from the Perspective of Military Legal Relations

The article analyzes norms of domestic and foreign military legislation concerning the procedure of execution of the order by military personnel. The article explores cases when the implementing of those orders can be harmful to the interests that are protected by law. The author distinguishes the differences of the order for the military personnel and civil officer; it is pointed out for whom the order is obligatory and who has the right to appeal and who will be liable for failure to execute the order. On one hand, the author emphasizes the inability for the military personnel to evade the execution of the order under the threat of legal sanctions; on the other hand, the article shows the possibility to execute an order as the form of complicity in a crime. The author cites typical examples of military officers’ orders that could lead to committing of crimes or to criminal prosecution of the executor. The author examines the orders that contradicts the norms of morality. The article explores the experience of evaluating military orders from the point of view of the military personnel in some foreign countries (for instance, in the USA, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Singapore). The author analyzes reasons and conditions of non-critical and even thoughtless attitude of the military personnel to any given orders. On the grounds of the found contradictions, the suggestions are expressed to try and make the Russian legislation more perfect by providing the military personnel with the ability to assess all given orders and see if they correlate with the law and the norms of morality. In the peacetime, the military personnel should have to right to inquire written orders if they are doubtful in the legal grounds of any give verbal order.