Since childhood - in line

The Supreme Court refused to recognize the procedure for admission to Moscow kindergartens illegal

The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees everyone the right to receive Russian education, regardless of nationality, religion and state affiliation, but in practice this thesis is often violated. While the capital’s authorities say that the problem with the lack of places in kindergartens has been resolved in Moscow, experts talk about thousands of children who are in “invisible lines” due to the lack of permanent registration, and do not even give the right to submit documents to the families of migrants and refugees.

About families

Rahmat hum Alalam Gw came from Afghanistan. In Russia, a man was given a temporary shelter that he prolongs every year. Rahmat Gul has a 6-year-old son M. Father tried to enroll him in kindergarten, assigned to the address of the registration. In December 2018, in one kindergarten, the boy was in the line of the 291st, in the second-178th. In October, the line advanced, but in the opposite direction: it was the 296th and 331st, respectively. By January 2019, the line was reduced, but only a few dozen positions.

Afghan citizen Zainab Mohammadi Vali Mohammad has a refugee status. Her family has Moscow registration at the place of stay. On the website of the mayor of Moscow, she filed an application to enroll her children, 6-year-old I. and 3-year-old S., to kindergarten. Zainab indicated the desired date - September 1, 2017. In January 2019, her children stood in line in the second and third hundreds.

Camerunk Kieng Adelin has been living in Russia for more than ten years. Kieng was not put on migration records, because her documents on the provision of temporary asylum are at the dispute stage. Kieng sent the documents by regular mail with a request to allow her son, who was born in Moscow and speaks Russian well, to visit any state kindergarten. However, the Moscow authorities demanded that it sign up through the site, where it is necessary to indicate the registration address that Camerunk could not get.

These three families of refugees have a different legal status of stay in Russia, but all of them are united by one thing - a refusal to access preschool education. Two boys, M. and I., will soon turn 7 years old - they will no longer have to go to kindergarten. Despite this, according to human rights activists, the Moscow authorities did not fulfill their direct duty, which consists in ensuring each child, regardless of citizenship, preschool education.

Not only foreigners, but also those who have a Russian passport are faced with the problem of access to kindergartens. Robert Poghosyan, the fourth applicant in a collective lawsuit against the Ministry of Education, has temporary registration in Moscow (registered in the suburbs at the place of residence). His 6-year-old son A. is a child with developmental features, who is obliged to enroll in a kindergarten in a priority. However, the place was still not provided to him: a disabled boy is in the fifth stage.

About access to kindergartens

Problems with access to Moscow kindergartens began in 2011, when officials adopted amendments, which limited the right of children without Moscow registration to receive preschool education.

The updated urban law divided the children into two registers: those who had permanent registration in Moscow received priority right to arrange a kindergarten, and those who were temporary took to the remaining places. In addition, a limit was set - 1000-1500 temporary places, which in fact did not allow children to be arranged not only migrants and refugees in kindergarten, but also most Russians.

In 2013, “temporary” rules came to the place of these amendments, which have not yet been replaced by “permanent”. The “temporary” rules established that only those children who were registered in Moscow could apply for a place in kindergarten, after which the problem with bursts only worsened.

The advantage was given to those who had permanent registration in the capital and beneficiaries, and the inhabitants of Moscow with temporary registration were sent to the end of the list (about those who had no registration in Moscow, there was no question at all). At the same time

The rules did not contain any restrictive deadlines to stay in the queue-this meant that the Department of Education did not take obligations, that the child, in principle, would go to kindergarten.

In May 2018, the Moscow authorities said: the problem with kindergartens was resolved. “One of the first tasks, which was set by Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin in 2011, was to eliminate the queues to the kindergarten. Today I can say that we have no queues in kindergartens. About 300 kindergartens and schools have been built over the past seven years, ”said Marat Khusnullin, deputy mayor of the capital.

Officials and ordinary citizens understand the word “turn” in different ways, in the September interview with Radio Liberty, lawyer and coordinator of the public movement “Russian children-affordable preschool education” Kirill Druzhinin noted. According to him, in the usual sense, the queue is a list of children who are built according to certain criteria and expect space in kindergarten.

“The officials have a queue of those of those children whose desired date for enrollment in the kindergarten, which they indicated, has already passed. And those children who have the desired date have not yet come, in accordance with the data of the electronic queue, are not called a queue, they are called deferred demand, ”said Druzhinin.

While Sobyanin claims a 50 percent growth of the number of preschoolers who managed to get into kindergartens, human rights activists and experts talk about the opposite. According to Druzhinin, in Moscow about 100 thousand children with temporary registration, who are in “invisible lines” and cannot get a place in kindergarten. According to civil assistance, since 2013, parents have not been able to win a single claim against the Moscow Education Department to challenge the procedure for enrolling in kindergarten.

About moral standards

The first claim to the Moscow Education Department was filed in April last year on behalf of Rahmat Gul, later other applicants joined it. The lawyer of “Civil Assistance” Maria Krasova, representing the interests of the plaintiffs, demanded that paragraphs 9 and 13 “On approval of the procedure for admission to training on educational programs of preschool education” be recognized as illegal.

The 9th paragraph provides that in order to enroll the child in kindergarten, foreigners must “additionally” provide documents confirming the legality of their stay in Russia (in particular, a certificate of registration of a child at the place of residence or at the place of stay). The 13th point regulates the method of submitting an application: by mail or through the public services portal.

According to lawyers,

The procedure for taking children in kindergarten, including foreigners, creates legal uncertainty, which can cause arbitrary interpretation and discrimination.

The courts of the first and appeal instances did not agree with this position: they did not find restrictions on the rights of children in the method of forming the order of enrollment in kindergarten, which directly depends on the type of registration (if it is in stock at all).

On April 23, the administrative case was considered in the Supreme Court. The representative of the Ministry of Justice did not agree with the requirement of administrative plaintiffs, but admitted that in the manner of admission to kindergartens there was no reason for refusal due to lack of registration. A similar position was supported by an employee of the Ministry of Education Victoria Pankova.

- The law is dispositive: either parents present the original registration certificate or do not present.

- Have you heard about the situation of Cameroon's citizen? She has no refugee status. The lease agreement will not be enough [to confirm the legality of stay]? - Judge Alla Nazarova asked irritably.

“I'm not strong in the topic of registration,” Pankova answered timidly. - I assume that when renting property, you can get registration at the place of stay ...

The representative of the Ministry of Education did not answer the question of what to do to a citizen of Cameroon, who has no registration at either place of residence or stay.

- What documents confirm the legitimacy of a foreigner’s stay in Russia? - Lawyer Maria Krasova asked a clarifying question.

- Based on the law ... as I already referred to ... a residence permit or a refugee certificate. Honestly, I am not a specialist in this area.

- You, a lawyer with the higher education of the Ministry of Education, find it difficult to answer this question. Nevertheless, the powers of kindergartens and school principals to determine the legality of status are transferred to you. They are in the same way to answer.

- But the Ministry of Education is not a specialized registration authority!

- We are talking about this. Why then do you take on checking the legality of stay in Russia?

- Well ... because people should be legally in Russia. These are moral standards! Well, how will we not check a person? Maybe he is a criminal! Maybe he was in a terrorist group!

- How can a teacher check this? By eye?

The Supreme Court did not suspect obvious gaps of knowledge of the migration legislation of a young employee of the Ministry of Education and refused to recognize the procedure for admission to Moscow kindergartens. Human rights activists, however, are positive: perhaps the court decision will be formulated in such a way that it will exclude any ambiguous interpretation of the law.

And if not, they will appeal. Otherwise, the children of foreigners in Russia will remain “three times vulnerable” social group: as migrants or refugees, like people in an indefinite situation, as well as children.