Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel The right to demonstrate The freedom of peaceful assembly is guaranteed by Article 21 of the ICCPR and Article 11 of the ECHR. In general, the imposition of punishment (including a professional disciplinary penalty) for participating in a demonstration is regarded as a breach of Article 11, and any 156 legitimate restrictions must satisfy the criteria of necessity and proportionality. At the same time, Article 11(2) of the ECHR allows states to restrict this right for, among others, members of the armed forces (see Box 5.1). Where restrictions are imposed on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly under Article 11(2), the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe recommends that such restrictions be prescribed by law where necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.157 Since Article 21 of the ICCPR does not specifically allow for restrictions on the right to freedom of assembly of service personnel (unlike Article 11(2) of the ECHR), States Parties to the ICCPR would, in any case, need to follow the requirements for limiting this right set out in the ICCPR (which are largely similar to those set out in Article 11(2) of the ECHR). In practice, most restrictions on members of the armed forces are related to national security, public order or public safety. Different Approaches Paragraph 23 of the OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security states that, “while providing for the individual service member’s civil rights, each state will ensure that its armed forces are politically neutral”. The balance between the communal interest in the political neutrality of the armed forces as a whole and the political rights of individual members of the armed forces can be drawn in various ways. As can be seen from Box 5.3, a number of OSCE participating States apply restrictions on the rights of service personnel to join a political party or stand for political office.158 84 156 European Court of Human Rights, Ezelin v. France (Application no. 11800/85, judgment of 26 April 1991), paras. 52-53. 157 Council of Europe, Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)4, op. cit., note 26, para. 53. 158 Responses to the ODIHR-DCAF 2018 questionnaire.