A resident of Russia will be given a passport after the ECHR proposed to pay him 9 thousand euros of compensation

A resident of Russia M., who became Apatride (stateless person), the authorities decided to issue a passport. This happened after M. appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which invited the Russian authorities to pay a man of 9 thousand euros of compensation, the Memorial human rights center reports .

M. - a native of one of the republics of the former USSR. He moved to Russia with his parents at preschool age, later he served in the army, and in the 2000s he was convicted. While the man was serving his sentence, the Ministry of Justice decided that his stay in Russia is undesirable, and the State Duma of the Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered him to deport him after liberation from the colony. The basis for this was the criminal record: the state bodies considered that M. poses a threat to the safety of the population and the defense capability of Russia.

M. was released on parole, as a convict, who, according to the FSIN, took the path of correction and is not dangerous for society. However, after leaving the colony, the man was placed in the Temporary detention center of foreign citizens (TsVSIG). And the presence of his deportation orders meant that M. was forced to be in an illegal status before repaying a criminal record (more than five years). This does not give him the opportunity to work, receive free medical care and use other social rights. M. does not have the opportunity to repay a criminal record through the court ahead of schedule, because this requires “evidence of correction”, which, for example, is considered employment, positive characteristics and legal marriage. But passing all these stages of socialization is almost impossible without a source of income.

In Russia, the courts refused M. to satisfy his requirements and restore citizenship, after which he filed a complaint with the ECHR, referring to Art. 3, 5, 8 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantee the right to ban inhuman and humiliating the dignity of appeal, the right to freedom and personal integrity, the right to respect private and family life.

In January, the court offered the parties a peaceful settlement: the payment of M. compensation of 9 thousand euros and the adoption by the authorities of measures to legalize it. The Russian government abandoned such conditions.

In August, M. received a notice that he was a citizen of Russia. "M. They assured that he would receive a passport anyway. The regional department for migration issues is given an order to recognize him as a citizen urgently and document, ”said Zhanna Biryukova, lawyer of the Migration and Law network. - Unfortunately, there are real fears that when the consideration of his complaint in the ECHR will end, the passport may be cancel again. ”

In 2017, the Constitutional Court issued a decision in which he admitted that the legislation allows to maintain stateless people in the TsVSIG actually indefinitely and this problem must be solved. However, to date, the situation has not changed.

Human rights activists also note that the authorities can arbitrarily apply the mechanism of deprivation of citizenship for certain crimes prescribed in Art. 22 62-ФЗ "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation". The fact is that Article 6 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation prohibits the deprivation of Russian citizenship of man, if after that he becomes an apatrid. In addition, the mechanism of deprivation of citizenship should not be applied to persons with Russian citizenship, the Constitution says. Thus, Art. 22 of the Law “On Citizenship” can be recognized as unconstitutional regarding those people who are citizens of Russia initially or received it after the collapse of the SSRU, human rights activists believe.