A/HRC/23/22 D. Selective objection to military service 47. Both the German Institute for Human Rights and the European Organisation of Military Associations referred to selective conscientious objection to military service and cited a case where the right to selective conscientious objection was recognized by the German Federal Administrative Court in 2005. The Court held that freedom of conscience protected an army software engineer, Major Florian Pfaff, who declared that the Iraq war was illegal and refused to work on a computer programme related to the conflict for reasons of conscience. E. Fair, independent and impartial procedures to consider applications for conscientious objection to military service; non-discrimination between conscientious objectors 48. War Resisters’ International stated that the action of some States to accept claims of conscientious objection as valid without inquiry was a good practice. It should be recalled that the Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1998/77 had welcomed the practice of recognizing claims without inquiry, and in the same resolution called upon States “to establish independent and impartial decision-making bodies with the task of determining whether a conscientious objection is genuinely held in a specific case, taking account of the requirement not to discriminate between conscientious objectors on the basis of their particular beliefs”. F. Consideration of claims for refugee status for conscientious objectors 49. The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection in its reply called on States to give consideration to applications for asylum from all persons seeking to escape military service in any country where there were no provisions or no adequate provision for conscientious objectors.36 IV. State law and practice: remaining challenges A. Lack of recognition or implementation of the right to conscientious objection to military service and alternative service; repeated trial or punishment 50. In the replies received from States and other organizations, the biggest remaining challenge identified was a lack of implementation of conscientious objection to military service. The following cases which illustrate a lack of implementation are taken from the replies received to requests for contributions to the present report. 51. The submission of Jehovah’s Witnesses alleged that, despite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Bayatyan v. Armenia, Armenia continued to prosecute and imprison conscientious objectors. The Jehovah’s Witnesses indicated there were 22 cases pending by Jehovah’s Witnesses for failure to implement the right to conscientious objection to military service before the European Court of Human Rights. Forum 18 News 36 See Chapter III, “Protection of conscientious objectors in international refugee law”, in Conscientious Objection to Military Service, pp. 72–82. 13