The Constitutional Court for the first time considered the case of detention of a stateless person for his subsequent expulsion from Russia

The Constitutional Court for the first time considered the case of a person placed in a special temporary detention facility for foreign citizens (SUVSIG) for subsequent deportation, reports the Memorial Human Rights Center.

According to the organization, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling on the complaint of the lawyer of the Migration and Law network of the Memorial human rights center Olga Tseytlina, and lawyer Sergei Golubok in the case of stateless person Noe Mskhiladze.

Noe Mskhiladze was born in 1972 in the Georgian SSR, after which he lived in St. Petersburg. In 2014, the Russian authorities decided that his stay in Russia was undesirable and placed him in SUVSIG for subsequent deportation. The Georgian side refused to accept him because he does not have Georgian citizenship, and he was released in August 2015.

In December 2015, he was brought to justice under Part 3 of Article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation by a foreign citizen or stateless person of the rules of entry into the Russian Federation or the regime of stay in the Russian Federation). He was given a fine and expulsion from Russia. Mskhiladze was placed in the detention center for foreign citizens of the Federal Migration Service of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, where he is still being held, since neither Georgia nor any other country agrees to accept him.

According to Memorial, all attempts to achieve the release of Mskhiladze and to stop the execution of the deportation order were rejected by the courts. The courts referred to the fact that the law does not provide for the review of the decision on administrative expulsion and termination of its execution, as well as the release of those placed in SUVSIG due to the lack of the possibility of expulsion.

The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the norms of the Code of Administrative Offences, which do not allow stateless persons - persons who have not received citizenship in the host country, to appeal the validity of their detention in SUVSIG for the purpose of expulsion from Russia. Thus, the law did not stipulate the duty of the judge in deportation cases to establish a specific period for keeping stateless persons and foreign citizens in SUVSIGs. In addition, judicial control over the legality and validity of such detention has not been established if deportation cannot be carried out.

If deportation was impossible, they remained in SUVSIG for more than two years - the statute of limitations for the execution of such a punishment.

“The significance of the resolution is difficult to overestimate. The Constitutional Court ordered changes to be made to the Code of Administrative Offences, which will ensure reasonable judicial control over the terms and grounds for keeping deportees in SUVSIGs,” Tseitlina said.

She added that the legislator has the right to provide for specific terms of restriction of freedom in the Administrative Code.

“At the same time, before making changes to the legislation, it is necessary to provide all persons whose imprisonment exceeds three months, in the absence of the possibility of deportation, the right to apply to the court with an application to verify the legality of further deprivation of liberty,” the lawyer noted.

According to Tseytlina, this case about the right to freedom concerns not only stateless persons, but also a wide range of foreign citizens whose deportation cannot be carried out and who are being held in captivity. In particular, this applies to citizens from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine who have lost their documents and are placed in SUVSIGs for the purpose of deportation, but the Consulate General of Ukraine cannot issue them certificates of return because it does not temporarily control these territories. This also applies to people with serious illnesses who have received temporary asylum in Russia, and other persons whose deportation is impossible for humanitarian reasons and for reasons of humanism.

The Constitutional Court also indicated that the federal legislator can also establish a special migration status for a stateless person, in respect of whom the decision on forced deportation from the Russian Federation cannot be executed.