The combat veteran certificate: obtaining it and challenging a refusal

What is happening

The usual story: the man did take part in combat tasks, but the paperwork does not record it in the form the commission requires. The extract shows a posting without naming the area, no order on actual participation was issued, and the unit's letter is written in general terms. The commission refuses, and formally it is entitled to, because no proof is before it.

The other version: the documents existed, but the unit has been disbanded, the archive transferred, and there is nowhere to obtain a certificate. The man goes from office to office and is told the information is not held. Yet the information does exist; it is simply in another archive or in the combat journals.

What turns on the certificate is not abstract benefit but concrete rights: payments, allowances, medical care, housing questions. So a dispute about one certificate is in reality a dispute about the whole set of rights the veterans legislation attaches to that status.

What the law says

• The right to combat veteran status arises from actual participation in combat action or in tasks in defined areas during defined periods, not from holding the certificate. The certificate only confirms a right that already exists.
• The veterans legislation sets out who qualifies and which periods and territories count. Service in the special military operation falls within it, and the way participation is confirmed for that period is set out separately.
• Proof is not limited to a letter from the unit: extracts from orders, entries in the military service record and personal service card, archive certificates, extracts from combat journals, records of wounds and treatment, and award material all count.
• A refusal by the commission must be in writing and give reasons. A refusal without reasons, or one that ignores the documents submitted, can be challenged.
• The commission's decision can be challenged both through the departmental hierarchy and in court. A time limit applies to a court claim, running from when you learned of the refusal.
• A court may find participation in combat action established on the whole of the evidence, including the testimony of others who served in the unit, where no archive documents survive.

What we do

• We establish exactly which proof is missing and on what grounds the commission refused.
• We send lawyer's requests to the unit, the military commissariats and the archives, including the Ministry of Defence archive.
• We gather further evidence: extracts from orders, entries in the service record, medical and award documents, records of wounds.
• We prepare a fresh application to the commission with the full set of documents, or a complaint to the higher authority.
• We challenge the refusal in court and ask the court to establish the fact of participation where documents have been lost.
• We see the matter through to the certificate and help register the rights that follow from it.

What we need from you

• The commission's written refusal with all its attachments, if you have it.
• Your military service record and contract, and an extract from your personal service card.
• Extracts from orders on joining the unit's rolls, on postings, on tasks performed and on actual participation.
• Letters from the unit and the military commissariat, including refusals and replies saying no information is held.
• Medical records if you were wounded or treated: discharge summaries, reports, the military injury certificate.
• Award documents and details of others who served with you and can confirm your part in the tasks.