As the Duma is trying to adopt a law on deprivation of citizenship. A chain of events

On April 21, the State Duma included the next version of the bill, according to which some Russians convicted of “terrorist” and “extremist” articles will be able to deprive citizenship. For the first time, they tried to introduce this norm as part of the Yarovaya Package back in 2016, but at first it changed, disappeared, appeared again and eventually disappeared. The introduction of a new version of the bill was also not without oddities. Medusa recalls amazing adventures of the initiative.

April 7, 2016. The State Duma is brought to the “Spring package”. There is an article about deprivation of citizenship. According to the authors, the authorities should deprive citizenship of convicted people under some “terrorist” and “extremist” articles. The deputies simply went around the direct constitutional ban - they suggested that people who fell into one of the categories listed in the bill, as if voluntarily abandoned Russian citizenship. And this is not prohibited by the Constitution. Only those who have another citizenship or guarantees of its receipt were offered to deprive citizenship. Such a condition also applies in the case of a voluntary withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation - if a person in the case of the exit is at all without citizenship, he will be refused. But the authors of the bill wrote the document so that they accidentally canceled this rule.

May 13, 2016. The State Duma approves of the "Spring Pack" in the first reading.

June 20, 2016. The new version of the package proposes to deprive citizenship not only of convicts. In the electronic base of the State Duma, a table of amendments to the second reading appears. It is proposed to deprive the citizenship of not only convicts on a number of “terrorist” and “extremist” articles, but also those who will go to serve in foreign power or judicial authorities, and also employees of international organizations in which Russia is not represented. What kind of “international organizations” are this, no one understands.

June 22, 2016. The table of amendments to the “Yarovaya Package” suddenly disappears from the State Duma electronic base. It was expected that on this day the State Duma would accept both bills of the package in the second and third reading, but on the eve it was decided to transfer the consideration to the last day of the 6th convocation-June 24. After that, the text of the bill for the second reading suddenly disappeared from the electronic base, along with new amendments on citizenship.

June 24, 2016, night before consideration. The table of amendments to the package suddenly appears again in the database. But an article on deprivation of citizenship disappears without a trace. Rather, the entire table of amendments, which the profile committee of the State Duma has already managed to approve the adoption, disappears without a trace. Instead, a new table appears - in fact, one table of amendments simply replaced the other, removing two extremely resonant parts from it - about the deprivation of citizenship and on the introduction of new categories of “disadvantaged” citizens. This is what a fragment of the document looked like, which spoke about the deprivation of citizenship, before and after the substitution:

June 24, 2016. The State Duma accepts the “Spring Pack” without the norm about the deprivation of citizenship.

April 3 and 4, 2017. A terrorist attack is taking place in the St. Petersburg metro. The FSB calls the name of the performer. The day after the terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 15 people, the FSB said that the name of the suicide bomber is Akbarzhon Dzalilov. According to the service, he was born in Kyrgyzstan, but in 2011 received Russian citizenship.

April 12, 2017. Vladimir Putin tells how to deprive the citizenship of terrorists. President Putin in an interview recalls that the Constitution forbids to deprive Russians of citizenship, but immediately talks about how to get around this ban. Legislation allows you to cancel the decision to accept people in citizenship. The President promised that the authorities would consult with lawyers and the decision would appear in the near future. Indeed, it is possible to cancel the decision on admission to citizenship, but only for the submission of false information when an application for citizenship, and not for any crimes.

April 18, 2017. A bill on deprivation of citizenship is submitted to the State Duma. The document was introduced by the leaders of all four Duma factions, which emphasized the significance of the bill. In 2012, for example, a document was made in the same way that forbade the Americans to adopt children from Russia. The bill proposed to cancel the decision on the issuance of citizenship to people who were later convicted of at least one of the series of “terrorist” or “extremist” articles - in particular, convicted of “deficiency” and “public calls for extremist activity”. It was assumed that the new law should affect only those who received citizenship not by birth - like Akbarzhon Dzhalilov - but the text was written so that the norms were applied to any citizens of Russia with other citizenship or guarantees of its receipt. One way or another, the document clearly contradicted the constitution, which guarantees the equality of citizenships and does not allow discriminating against people who have received citizenship not by birth.

April 20, 2017. The bill suddenly disappears from the electronic base of the State Duma. At the same time, the BBC, citing sources in the State Duma, writes that the bill was withdrawn from the parliament due to obvious contradictions of the Constitution. “The procedure for introducing bills to the State Duma and their preliminary consideration” regulates the procedure for calling the bill - if the authors themselves do not, the review may initiate the collegial body, the subject of the right of legislative initiative (the Federation Council, the Government of the Russian Federation, the regional legislative assembly, the constitutional or supreme courts). But in this case, judging by the comments from the parliament, everything was easier. “They came from Volodin and ordered to remove it urgently,” one of the BBC interlocutors explained. The violation of the regulations was also announced by the Vice Speaker of the State Duma Igor Lebedev in the commentary to Vedomosti. He said that the document "was taken to correct one proposal and make back in the evening."

April 21, 2017. The bill on deprivation was again submitted to the State Duma. This time, the document - under the new number - was made by the State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Irina Yarovaya and other deputies. The purpose of the bill remained approximately the same: the authorities want to cancel the decision to accept the citizenship of those who will be convicted of one of the “terrorist” or “extremist” articles (the list has slightly changed relative to the previous version). But the article is arranged a little different. As we have already written, according to the current legislation, can be canceled the issuance of citizenship only if false information is submitted. And the applicant, among other things, undertakes to observe the Constitution of Russia. So now the bill says that it will be canceled on the grounds that a person “had no intention to bear the responsibilities established by the legislation” of Russia, and received a passport for “activities that pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation”. Roughly speaking, he submitted false information about what would observe the constitution.

April 21, 2017. Akbarzhon Dzhalilova posthumously deprived of Russian citizenship. The new law was not required for this. The Ministry of Internal Affairs explained that the district court in St. Petersburg established that Jalilov’s father Akram illegally received Russian citizenship, because he provided false information. And this entailed and the cancellation of the decision to accept his son’s citizenship.

Alexander Borzenko, Denis Dmitriev