A citizen of the Russian Federation may be deprived of citizenship. Termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation

Forms of termination of citizenship. Citizenship can be free, which implies the right of a person to withdraw from citizenship, to change it. So, in part 2 of Art. 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948 states: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of ... the right to change his nationality." Since a change of citizenship is usually associated with a change of country permanent residence, Part 2 Art. 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 16, 1966 also establishes that everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own.

When the state restricts or prohibits the ability of an individual to change his own citizenship, he is bound or not free.

A citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to change his citizenship in accordance with Part 3 of Art. 6 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. This means that he has the right to stop Russian citizenship, become a citizen of another state or a stateless person.

Since citizenship is a political and legal connection between two parties - the state and the citizen, then its stability is ensured by the coincidence of the will of the state and the will of the citizen. In the absence of such a match, citizenship relations may be terminated at the request of either party. In the social aspect, the termination of citizenship at the will of a person opens up opportunities for him to search for another acceptable community of people. 1 Belkin A.A. On some doctrinal issues of the institution of citizenship // Jurisprudence. 1995. No. 6. S. 12..

The world practice knows the following grounds for termination of citizenship:

• as a result of renunciation of citizenship own will(expatriation);
• forced deprivation by the state of citizenship of a person who acquired it by birth ( denationalization);
• forced deprivation of citizenship of naturalized persons ( denaturalization);
• as a result of the mass return of persons to their former place of residence (repatriation) 2 The procedure for repatriation provided for the withdrawal from Soviet citizenship of persons of Spanish nationality who lived in the USSR in the period from 1936 to 1940. They were considered to have left Soviet citizenship from the moment they left for permanent residence to Spain.;
• as a result of the mass choice of citizenship when changing territorial jurisdiction (option);
• on the basis of an international treaty or on other grounds provided for by the relevant law.

Freedom of expatriation may be established by state law. This means that if any person who has the citizenship of a given state naturalizes abroad, then he automatically loses the citizenship of this state. In US law, based on the doctrine of freedom of expatriation, automatic loss of citizenship is a typical form of termination. In Western doctrine, there is an opinion that unconditional freedom of expatriation is an international legal norm. According to this view, a person naturalized in any state should be considered to have lost his former citizenship. However, practice refutes it. A significant number of states do not adhere to the freedom of expatriation, and it acts as an international legal norm only if it is provided for by an international treaty for its participants.

Russian legislation on citizenship, as follows from the list of grounds for termination of Russian citizenship, enshrined in Chapter III of the Law on Citizenship, also does not adhere to the principle of freedom of expatriation.

It is advisable to consider the relationship between the concepts of "loss of citizenship" and "termination of citizenship". In Soviet legislation on citizenship, the termination of a person's political and legal ties with the state was called loss and included forms of termination of citizenship:

a) due to withdrawal from the citizenship of the USSR;

b) due to deprivation of citizenship of the USSR;

c) on the grounds provided for by international treaties of the USSR;

d) on other grounds provided by law.

In the current Law on Citizenship of Russia, as well as in the laws of the CIS member states, the loss of citizenship means the termination of citizenship regardless of the will of the citizen or even against his will. In the Russian Citizenship Law of 2002, as in the previous one, the term "loss of citizenship" is not even used as the name of one of the forms of termination of citizenship.

The Law on Russian Citizenship provides for the possibility of voluntary termination of the state of Russian citizenship by limes as a result of renunciation of citizenship or the choice of citizenship of another country (option). As one of the forms of termination of citizenship, the Law provides for the cancellation of a decision on admission to citizenship, if it was acquired on the basis of false documents, which must be established in court.

In the Law on Citizenship in Art. 18 lists the grounds for termination of Russian citizenship:

a) due to renunciation of citizenship of the Russian Federation;

b) on other grounds provided for by this Federal Law or an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Termination of citizenship in the form of renunciation of citizenship at will (expatriation). Withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation is the main reason for its termination.

The Law "On Citizenship of the RSFSR" provided for two forms of renunciation of citizenship: at the request of a citizen of the Russian Federation and a simplified procedure for registration. The registration procedure contributed to the reunification of families in the conditions of the collapse of the USSR.

As a petition, the decision to renounce citizenship was made by the President of the Russian Federation, and as a matter of registration, it was registered by the relevant internal affairs bodies.

In a simplified procedure, in the former Law on Citizenship, a person could declare his intention to renounce Russian citizenship if at least one of the parents, spouse or child had a different citizenship, or if the person left for permanent place residence in another state in accordance with the procedure established by law, and there were no obstacles provided for by the Law.

In the original version of the Law "On Citizenship of the RSFSR" in paragraph "b" part 1 of Art. 23 contained a significant clause specifying the renunciation of citizenship under this paragraph: “A citizen can use such a right provided that he acquires the citizenship of a parent, spouse or child, respectively.” Subsequently, this reservation was excluded from the text of the article, and. Based on the text of the norms of the Law “On Citizenship of the RSFSR”, dedicated to the termination of Russian citizenship, a situation has become possible in which a person renounces Russian citizenship without intending to leave the country, remaining at his former place of residence. The newspaper described a case when a Russian citizen, a mother of five children, voluntarily withdrew from Russian citizenship, thus protesting to a state that was not fulfilling its obligations 3 Life without citizenship // Novaya Gazeta. 1997. September.. By renunciation of citizenship, exemption from civic obligations, including military service. Such cases were isolated, but it is obvious that the state is intolerant of a situation in which a significant part of its population renounces its citizenship. In addition, such a possibility, arising from the Law, is contrary to the policy of reducing statelessness, based on the fact that a person, losing the citizenship of one state, must acquire the citizenship of another.

The former union legislation provided for renunciation of citizenship only at the request of a person. The Law "On Citizenship of the RSFSR" defined two groups of grounds preventing exit. In the presence of one group of grounds, renunciation of citizenship may be denied. So, according to Part 2 of Art. 23 of the Law “On Citizenship of the RSFSR”, an application for renunciation of Russian citizenship may be rejected if a citizen lives or intends to settle in a country that is not bound to the Russian Federation by contractual obligations for legal assistance, but has either property obligations to natural or legal entities Russian Federation, or unfulfilled obligations to the state arising from the grounds determined by the law of the Russian Federation.

The second group of grounds, according to Part 2 of Art. 23 of the Law "On Citizenship of the RSFSR", excluded the very possibility of renunciation of citizenship.

According to this norm, renunciation of the citizenship of the Russian Federation was not allowed:

a) after receiving a summons for conscription for fixed-term military or alternative service and before its completion;

b) if a citizen petitioning for renunciation of the citizenship of the Russian Federation is involved as an accused in a criminal case or there is a court judgment of conviction against him that has entered into legal force.

Renunciation of citizenship is provided for by the laws of all CIS member states. At the same time, all states usually restrict renunciation of citizenship both by the conditions for refusing to renounce citizenship and the conditions for preventing renunciation of citizenship (sometimes these conditions are combined).

The conditions for refusal to renounce citizenship include: the presence of unfulfilled obligations to the state (including obligations of military service), as well as obligations with which the significant interests of citizens, enterprises and public organizations are connected (Laws on citizenship of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan , Uzbekistan, Ukraine).

In these laws, along with the conditions for refusing to renounce citizenship, conditions are provided under which renunciation of citizenship is not allowed, or an application for this may be rejected.

Typical grounds for this refusal are:

• conscription for urgent military service or alternative service;
• bringing the accused to criminal responsibility or the presence of a court sentence that has entered into force and is subject to execution (Laws on citizenship of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan);
• if renunciation of citizenship is contrary to the interests state security republics (Laws of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).

An indication in an abstract form of the contradiction of renunciation of citizenship to the interests of state security makes it possible to arbitrarily deprive a person of the right to change his citizenship. At the same time, this requirement does not contradict Part 3 of Art. 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 16, 1966, which states that the right to free movement and freedom of residence, as well as the right to leave any country, including one's own, cannot be restricted, except as provided by law, necessary to protect state security, public order, health or morality of the population. In accordance with the former USSR Law of May 20, 1991 on the procedure for exit from the USSR and entry into the USSR of citizens of the USSR, a citizen of the USSR could be temporarily denied the issuance of a foreign passport for leaving the USSR if he was aware of the information constituting the state secrecy, or other contractual, contractual obligations that prevent leaving the USSR, until the termination of the circumstances preventing the departure (clause 1, part 1, article 7), are in effect. Article 12 of this Law provided that citizens of the USSR who were aware of information constituting a state secret might not be allowed to leave the USSR until the expiration of the established period from the moment citizens' access to this information was terminated. This period may not exceed five years.

This was explained by the fact that in Soviet times the decision to renounce citizenship was considered not only as a personal matter of a person, an extremely responsible step in his life, but also as a fact affecting the interests of people close to him, other citizens, public organizations, and finally, the interests of society and states. Therefore, the Soviet state and its legislation protected these interests or sought to minimize the damage caused to them by renunciation of citizenship. Guided by such considerations, the legislator provided for the following restrictions on the freedom to renounce USSR citizenship:

a) if a person applying for withdrawal from Soviet citizenship. has unfulfilled obligations to the state;

b) the person has not fulfilled his property obligations, with which the essential interests of citizens or state, cooperative and other public organizations are connected (Article 17 of the Law on Citizenship of 1978).

Renunciation of citizenship was also not allowed if the person applying for renunciation was involved as a defendant or there is a court sentence that has entered into legal force and is subject to execution, or if the person’s renunciation of USSR citizenship is contrary to the interests of the state security of the USSR. The Law “On Citizenship of the RSFSR” did not contain a provision on the contradiction between the withdrawal of citizenship from the interests of state security, which allowed scientists, engineers and other specialists to freely withdraw from Russian citizenship. Restrictions on leaving the Russian Federation specified category persons is imposed by the Federal Law of July 18, 1996 “On the Procedure for Departure from the Russian Federation and Entry into the Russian Federation”.

The 2002 Citizenship Law stipulates that the withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation by a person residing in the territory of the Russian Federation is carried out on the basis of the voluntary expression of the will of such a person in general order, with the exception of cases containing the presence of grounds for refusing to withdraw from the citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation by a person residing in the territory of a foreign state is carried out on the basis of the voluntary expression of will of such a person in a simplified manner, except for cases containing grounds for refusal to renounce the citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation of a child, one of whose parents has the citizenship of the Russian Federation, and the other parent is a foreign citizen, or whose only parent is a foreign citizen, is carried out in a simplified manner at the request of both parents or at the request of the only parent.

In Art. 20 of the Law on Citizenship of 2002, the conditions for refusing to renounce citizenship of the Russian Federation and the conditions for rejecting a person's application for renunciation of citizenship (conditions for preventing renunciation of citizenship) are combined into single grounds for refusing to renounce citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation is not allowed if the citizen of the Russian Federation:

a) has an unfulfilled obligation to the Russian Federation established by federal law;

b) has been brought by the competent authorities of the Russian Federation as a defendant in a criminal case or there is a judgment of conviction against him that has entered into legal force and is subject to execution;

c) has no other citizenship and guarantees of its acquisition.

Termination of citizenship in the form of choice of citizenship (option). The basis for the termination of citizenship in the Russian Federation is also the option (choice) of citizenship in cases where a citizen of Russia, when changing the nationality of the territory in which he lives, chooses another citizenship.

The 1991 Law “On Citizenship of the RSFSR” did not contain a separate article on option in the chapter “Termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation”, since the rule on option, which was at the same time the basis not only for the loss, but also for the acquisition of citizenship, was among the grounds for acquiring citizenship (paragraph 3 part 1 article 12 of the Law).

In the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation of 2002, the rules on option are contained both in the chapter providing for the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation and in the chapter on the termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation, although these rules do not coincide with each other textually. In Art. 21 “Choosing another citizenship (option) when changing the State Border of the Russian Federation” stipulates that during territorial transformations as a result of a change in accordance with an international treaty of the Russian Federation of its State Border Russian citizens, residing in the territory that has undergone these transformations, have the right to retain or change their citizenship in accordance with the terms of this international treaty.

The Law provides for the possibility of termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation on other grounds provided for by the Law on Citizenship or an international treaty of the Russian Federation. In the Law on Citizenship, other grounds include the possibility of changing the citizenship of children and incapacitated persons when changing the citizenship of parents, guardians and trustees.

Cancellation of the decision to acquire or terminate Russian citizenship. Russian citizenship may be terminated if the decision to acquire citizenship of the Russian Federation is cancelled. The same decision to cancel can be made with respect to the termination of citizenship.

The basis for this is the adoption of a decision on the acquisition or termination of Russian citizenship on the basis of a court-established fact that the applicant provided knowingly false documents or knowingly false information.

Cancellation of the decision on issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation is carried out by the President of the Russian Federation or other authorized body in charge of cases of citizenship of the Russian Federation and made such a decision.

If there is a similar fact established by a court, in addition to the annulment of the decision on citizenship issues, a person may be held criminally liable if his actions contain elements of a crime.

Unlike the previous Law on Citizenship of 1991, the provision of the Law on Citizenship of 2002 allows the decision to cancel the acquisition or termination of Russian citizenship to be extended to family members of a person who is found to have provided false documents and knowingly false information. In addition, while the 1991 Citizenship Law established a five-year deadline for revoking a decision to grant citizenship, after which Russian citizenship obtained on the basis of false documents could no longer be revoked, the 2002 Citizenship Law There are no deadlines for canceling decisions on citizenship issues.

Deprivation of citizenship. There is a relationship between the annulment of a decision to grant citizenship and the deprivation of citizenship: the annulment of a decision to grant citizenship can be seen as a form of deprivation of citizenship.

Firstly, this is the only ground that allows the termination of citizenship without the voluntary will of the person.

Secondly, deprivation of citizenship, including in the case of fraudulent naturalization, is a common form of loss of citizenship in foreign countries Oh. At the same time, one cannot equate the deprivation of citizenship practiced in the Soviet era with the automatic loss of citizenship that exists in the legislation. foreign states.

The Law “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” of 2002, like the previous one, excludes the possibility of arbitrary deprivation of citizenship. According to part 4 of Art. 4 of the Law, a citizen of the Russian Federation cannot be deprived of his citizenship.

The principle of inadmissibility of deprivation of citizenship appeared only in the Russian legislation on citizenship, since all laws on union citizenship, including the Law on Citizenship of the USSR of 1990, fixed this form of loss of citizenship.

Deprivation of citizenship - termination of the connection of citizenship at the initiative of the state, unilaterally, which does not provide for the consent of the citizen as a condition.

Deprivation of citizenship was widely practiced by the Soviet state throughout the history of its development, acted as a means of combating dissent, a form of repression, non-recognition of the right of Soviet citizens to live abroad. The deprivation of citizenship made sense in the context of the ideological confrontation between the two systems, when the deprivation of citizenship of the USSR, as a rule, was accompanied by expulsion from the USSR.

Here is what was written about the deprivation of citizenship in 1982: “Deprivation of citizenship of the USSR is a severe punishment. In moral terms, it is, perhaps, much harder than the measures of criminal responsibility (except for execution). It is one thing when a person serves a criminal sentence in the form of deprivation of liberty and then returns to his home, to his relatives and friends, joins socially useful work and gradually his experiences are forgotten, and another thing is when a person is forcibly deprived of citizenship, expelled from the USSR and he is losing his homeland" 4 Golovko A.A. Man, individual, citizen. Minsk, 1982. S. 30..

In practice, the right to deprive the citizenship of the USSR was used in relation to persons not pleasing to the regime, mainly dissidents. Characteristically, the legislative acts on citizenship before the adoption of the Law on Citizenship of 1978 did not contain any indication of the grounds on which deprivation of citizenship could be applied, leaving the decision on this issue to the discretion of the competent authorities. For the first time, such grounds were established by the Law on Citizenship of the USSR in 1978. These included “actions discrediting the high rank of a citizen of the USSR and damaging the prestige or state security of the USSR.” The deprivation of citizenship of the USSR could take place in an exceptional case by decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (Article 18 of the Law on Citizenship of 1978). The deprivation of citizenship was strictly personal in nature and did not entail a change in the citizenship of either the spouse of the person in question or his children, who retained Soviet citizenship. A person deprived of USSR citizenship could be expelled from the USSR.

The Law on Citizenship of the USSR of 1990, fixing the deprivation of citizenship, limited the possibilities of its application - only to the citizen who lives abroad, and established such a basis as "actions discrediting the high rank of a citizen", resolved the previously unregulated issue of who introduces the idea of ​​deprivation of citizenship.

A specific feature of the practice of deprivation of citizenship in the early years of Soviet citizenship was not the individual nature of the deprivation of a certain specific person, but a mass approach that extended to entire categories of citizens. Citizenship was revoked by subjects of the former Russian Empire those who left the borders of the state without the permission of the competent state bodies, the so-called defectors, etc. When the “Iron Curtain” finally descended, such grounds for mass deprivation of citizenship lost their significance. Used mainly individual approach to address issues of deprivation of citizenship, concerning the so-called dissidents. However, in the conditions when during the “thaw” the iron curtain opened a little and Soviet citizens received the right to travel abroad for permanent residence, the mass approach to deprivation of citizenship was revived, albeit under the guise of renunciation of citizenship.

In 1967, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Decree "On the renunciation of the citizenship of persons migrating from the USSR to Israel." They were considered to have left their citizenship from the moment they left the USSR. This Decree was of a closed nature, was not published, and it was impossible to refer to it. The secrecy was removed from it at the conclusion of the USSR Constitutional Supervision Committee, on the basis of which the Decree was officially published 24 years after its adoption.

The prohibition on the application of deprivation of citizenship follows from the right of a person to citizenship, the bilateral nature of the ties between a person and the state, forming relations of citizenship and implying the inadmissibility of terminating these ties by both one and the other party without mutual consent. At the same time, deprivation of citizenship can be legally formulated as a loss of citizenship or as one of the grounds for renunciation of citizenship. On the contrary, there are cases when the legislator (as in Moldova) under the legislative wording of deprivation of citizenship means renunciation of citizenship.

Meanwhile, deprivation of citizenship as a sanction, punishment is practiced by many democratic countries who do not adhere to the principle of inalienable citizenship. Typically, such a measure is applied only to naturalized citizens who have committed unlawful behavior within a relatively short period of time after naturalization. Part 2 Art. 11 of the Spanish Constitution states that "no Spaniard by origin shall be deprived of his nationality"; naturalized, therefore, can be deprived. The Austrian law, which allows the deprivation of citizenship of naturalized citizens, prohibits this after six years after naturalization (§ 34, para. 3). The US Supreme Court in 1958 upheld a federal law that provided for loss of citizenship for "participation in voting in elections in a foreign country."

Deprivation of citizenship reduces the scope of a person's legal personality. reduces the measure of its legal protection. In its consequences, deprivation of citizenship is similar to such measures as loss of rights, “deprivation of fundamental rights” (Article 18 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, Article 66 of the Swiss Constitution), civil execution, etc., entails the loss or reduction of political ties with the state or deprivation of patronage - the main elements of citizenship.

Thus, the main difference between the deprivation of citizenship that existed in the Soviet period and the automatic loss of citizenship enshrined in the legislation on citizenship of foreign states is that the deprivation of citizenship did not contain clear grounds for application and was considered as a measure of punishment, while automatic loss of citizenship occurs on strictly defined grounds in the law on citizenship and can be considered as a reaction of the state aimed at streamlining the relations of citizenship.

Loss of citizenship. The grounds for termination of citizenship in the Russian Federation under the new Law on Citizenship, as well as under the previous Law on Citizenship of 1991, do not include the norms on automatic loss of citizenship common in the legislation on citizenship of other countries. We can say that the Russian law on citizenship provides for only one reason for the loss of citizenship: by canceling the decision on admission to citizenship - by providing knowingly false information and false documents.

Meanwhile, the grounds for the loss of citizenship in the legislation on citizenship of foreign countries are quite diverse. Each state, based on its own historical, political, economic and other conditions, establishes and controls their implementation.

For example, in the US, a person loses US citizenship if they:

1. acquires citizenship of a foreign state by naturalization on the basis of a personal application submitted on his behalf, application of one of the parents, guardian, authorized representative or naturalization of the parents exercising legal guardianship over this person;
2. takes an oath or otherwise declares allegiance to a foreign state or its political and territorial subdivision;
3. joins or serves in the armed forces of a foreign state without special written permission from the secretary of state and the secretary of defense;
4. enters the service, holds a position or performs any duties in any institution of the government of a foreign state or its political and territorial subdivision, provided that he had or is acquiring the citizenship of this foreign state;
5. makes a formal statement to an official of a US diplomatic or consular office about the renunciation of citizenship in the form prescribed by the Secretary of State;
6. submits in the United States a formally written renunciation of citizenship to an official appointed by the Attorney General in the prescribed form;
7. commits any form of treason, attempts to violently overthrow the government of the United States, or is in the armed forces operating against the United States 5 United States of America: Constitution and Legislation. M., 1993. S. 347-348..

Under the Austrian Federal Citizenship Act 1965, a person may lose Austrian citizenship due to:

a) acquisition of foreign citizenship;

b) entering military service in a foreign state;

c) deprivation of citizenship;

d) renunciation of citizenship.

In Italy, a person loses citizenship:

1. voluntarily received foreign citizenship and resettled or resettled abroad;
2. who, against his will, has acquired a foreign citizenship, who has declared his renunciation of Italian citizenship and is moving abroad;
3. accepted into the service of a foreign government or entered the military service of a foreign power and did not leave it, despite the warning of the Italian government, within the prescribed period.

In the above cases, the loss of citizenship does not release a person from military duty, unless such an exemption is provided for by a special law.

The most typical grounds for the loss of citizenship, including those enshrined in the laws on citizenship of the CIS member states, are:

A) entering the military or other public service of another state without the knowledge or permission of its state. This ground for the loss of citizenship is listed in the laws on citizenship of Azerbaijan (Art. 20), Belarus (Art. 20), Georgia (Art. 32), Kazakhstan (Art. 21), Kyrgyzstan (Art. 25), Moldova (formulated as deprivation of citizenship in Art. 24), Ukraine (Art. 19), Tajikistan (Art. 20), Turkmenistan (Art. 22), Uzbekistan (Art. 21).

In paragraph 5 of Art. 19 of the Law on Citizenship of Ukraine of 2001 states that citizenship of Ukraine is lost if a citizen of Ukraine, without the consent of the state bodies of Ukraine, voluntarily entered the military service, to work in the security service, law enforcement agencies, justice agencies or public authorities or local self-government bodies of another state .

The presence of such grounds follows from the understanding of citizenship as a violation of allegiance to the state. The European Convention on Citizenship establishes the possibility of losing citizenship only in the event of a person's voluntary entry into military service in a foreign state, but, according to general rule unless the person becomes stateless.

IN Western Europe the specified ground for termination of citizenship in one form or another has been preserved in Austria. Greece. Spain, Italy. Finland, France. At the same time, it is legislated that a person may be deprived of citizenship, although this does not mean that the deprivation of citizenship is mandatory in each specific case.

According to paragraph 5 of part 1 of Art. 19 of the Law "On Citizenship of Ukraine" (as amended on January 18, 2001) Ukrainian citizenship is lost if a citizen of Ukraine, without the consent of the state bodies of Ukraine, voluntarily entered the military service, to work in the security service, law enforcement agencies, justice bodies or state bodies authorities or local self-government bodies of another state. However, the corresponding provision on loss of citizenship does not apply if, as a result of this, a citizen of Ukraine becomes stateless.

There is no single position in the literature as to whether it is necessary to deprive the citizenship of a person who entered the civil service in another state.

The counterarguments here are as follows.

1. The service of a citizen in the state bodies of a foreign state can be dangerous only when these states are not on friendly terms.

2. Today there is already a practice when citizens European Union have the right of access to civil service in countries that are members of the EEC, on an equal footing with citizens of these states.

3. Service in public authorities is the source of a person's material existence.

4. Persons whose activities are not related to the solution of state issues may also be in the public service.

5. The presence of such a norm in the legislation significantly limits the employment opportunities of their citizens living abroad, which, in conditions economic crisis in the CIS countries negatively affects the well-being of citizens of these countries. The presence of such a legal norm is more of a historical and traditional nature than is determined by the requirements of the modern period of development of society;

b) violation of the deadlines for consular registration abroad(usually two to five years). This ground for the loss of citizenship is enshrined in the laws on citizenship of Azerbaijan (Article 20). Georgia (Art. 32), Kyrgyzstan (Art. 25), Tajikistan (Art. 20). Uzbekistan (Art. 21), Ukraine (Art. 21).

The Law “On Citizenship of Ukraine”, as amended on April 16, 1997, fixed the possibility of a person losing citizenship if, while outside Ukraine, he did not become a consular register for 7 years without good reason. Valid reasons were considered: the absence of diplomatic missions or consular offices of Ukraine in the country of permanent residence, prolonged illness, hostilities and other emergency situations (clause 4, article 20).

This ground of loss of nationality is extremely rare in the laws of other countries, although the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 30 August 1961 allows for the loss of nationality on this ground: “A naturalized person may lose his nationality by residence abroad for a period of at least seven years, as determined by the law of the Contracting State concerned, as a result of his failure to declare to the appropriate authorities his intention to retain his nationality.

The current Law "On Citizenship of Ukraine" (as amended on January 18, 2001) does not contain such a basis for the loss of Ukrainian citizenship as failure to register with a consular officer, which is explained by:

1) by the fact that the previous norm regulating this issue turned out to be ineffective;

2) the absence of a legislative definition of “a person who is abroad”;

3) the absence in a number of cases of information from employees of consular offices about persons long time residing in this country, but not registered with the consular office;

4) the fact that the norm of paragraph 4 of Art. 28 of the Law "On Citizenship of Ukraine" (as amended on April 16, 1997) contradicted Part 2 of Art. 7 of this Law: "Residence or temporary stay of a citizen of Ukraine outside the state does not terminate his citizenship of Ukraine." Thus, we can assume that the current Law "On Citizenship of Ukraine" more rationally regulates these relations;

V) due to the acquisition by a person of the citizenship of another state, unless otherwise provided by an international treaty.

This provision is contained in the laws on citizenship of Belarus (Article 20), Georgia (Article 32).

According to the Commission on Citizenship under the President of the Russian Federation, in the CIS and Baltic countries for 1992-1999 they left the citizenship of the Russian Federation: in 1992-1996. - 71,500 people, in 1997 - 18,963 people, in 1998 - 24,295 people, in 1999 - 27,616 people, in total for 1992-1999. - 142 374 people

These data are consistent with data on population migration from Russia (thousand people): in 1998, 133 thousand people left. (of which to the CIS and Baltic countries - 80.3); in 1999 - 129.7 (of which to the CIS and Baltic countries - 85.2) 6 Russia in numbers // Arguments and Facts. 2000. No. 14..

As can be seen from the above data, the number of persons who have issued a renunciation of Russian citizenship remains stable and does not tend to decrease, although in general it is an order of magnitude smaller than the number of persons who acquired Russian citizenship over the specified period.

Chapter III. TERMINATION OF CITIZENSHIP OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

1. The termination of Russian citizenship is a separate group of relations of the institution of citizenship. Termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation is the loss by a person of the status of a citizen of the Russian Federation and the rights and obligations based on citizenship. Termination of citizenship, as a rule, is carried out in order to acquire citizenship or citizenship of another state.
2. Modern legal doctrine based on historical experience legal regulation citizenship of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, identifies the following forms of termination of citizenship:

1) expatriation(from lat. ex - from; patria - homeland, fatherland) - exit from citizenship on one's own application, expatriation can be permissive or free;

2) denaturalization(from fr. - loss) - forced deprivation of citizenship of naturalized persons by the state;

3) denationalization(from French - loss national characteristics) - deprivation of citizenship of persons who acquired it by birth.

The last two forms of cessation of citizenship are currently covered by the general concept of deprivation of citizenship. In the modern practice of foreign countries, the institution of deprivation of citizenship is often found in the form of denaturalization and, according to international practice, is not a violation of human rights and freedoms, if it is carried out in accordance with the law and excludes the possibility of arbitrariness on the part of the state. On the contrary, deprivation of citizenship in this case allows the state to take into account its interests, protect against possible threats, etc. A generalization of foreign experience in matters of deprivation of citizenship is the European Convention on Citizenship, which fixed the grounds for the loss of citizenship ex lege (by law) or at the initiative of the state party. In Art. Article 7 of this Convention provides that a State Party may not provide in its domestic law for the loss of its nationality ex lege or at the initiative of the State Party, except in the following cases:

- voluntary acquisition of another citizenship;

- Acquiring the nationality of a State Party by fraud, providing false information or concealing any relevant fact concerning the applicant;

- voluntary service in foreign armed forces;

- conduct that causes serious harm to the vital interests of the participating State;

— Lack of genuine link between the State Party and the citizen permanently residing abroad;

— if, during the period of minority of the child, it is established that the conditions provided for by domestic law which made it possible to acquire the nationality of the State Party ex lege are no longer fulfilled;

- adoption of a child, if the child acquires or has foreign citizenship of one or both parents adopting him.

However, even in this case, the European Convention on Nationality establishes a guarantee that a State Party cannot provide in its domestic law for the loss of its nationality if the person concerned becomes stateless as a result. The exception to this is in cases of acquisition of citizenship through fraud, provision of false information or concealment of any relevant fact concerning the applicant.

For domestic legislation, the institution of deprivation of citizenship is well known. Even during the period of Russian citizenship, it was envisaged that citizenship would be terminated “by itself” in the event that a Russian subject married a foreigner. The institution of deprivation of citizenship was actively used in the Soviet period. To designate forced forms of termination of citizenship, the legislator of the Soviet period used, as a rule, the more generalized terminology "deprivation" and "loss". One of the first acts that established the deprivation of citizenship was the Decree of December 15, 1921 "On the deprivation of the rights of citizenship of certain categories of persons who are abroad." According to the act of citizenship, persons who had stayed abroad for more than 5 years and did not receive from the Soviet missions were deprived foreign passports or Soviet certificates before March 1, 1922, as well as persons who left Russia after November 7, 1917 without the permission of the Soviet authorities, etc. The Regulation on Union citizenship, approved by the Decree of the USSR Central Executive Committee of October 29, 1924, recognized them as having lost USSR citizenship persons who are deprived of citizenship under legislative acts union republics, published before July 6, 1923, persons who left the USSR and did not return or will not return at the request of the relevant authorities, persons deprived of citizenship by a court verdict. Subsequently, special acts providing for the deprivation of citizenship were also adopted. For example, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of November 13, 1925 "On deprivation of citizenship USSR abroad and who missed the deadline for registration of former prisoners of war and internees of the tsarist and red armies, as well as amnestied persons who served in the white armies and participants in counter-revolutionary uprisings "and Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 17, 1967 N 818-VII" On the withdrawal from the citizenship of the USSR of persons migrating from the USSR to Israel. The most complete institution of deprivation of citizenship was reflected in the Law of the USSR of May 23, 1990 "On Citizenship of the USSR". In accordance with Art. Art. 22 and 23 of this Law, the forced termination of citizenship was carried out in two forms: loss and deprivation. The loss of citizenship of the USSR was carried out in the following cases:

- admission of a person to the military service, security service, police, justice or other bodies of state power and administration in a foreign state;

– permanent residence of a person abroad, without consular registration without good reason for 5 years;

- Acquisition of USSR citizenship as a result of the presentation of deliberately false information or false documents.

Deprivation of USSR citizenship could take place in an exceptional case in relation to a person living abroad, if he committed actions that caused significant damage to state interests or state security. Subsequently, the Committee of the Constitutional Supervision of the USSR in the conclusion of February 14, 1991 N 14 (2-11) recognized certain provisions of Soviet legislation on the deprivation of citizenship of the USSR as inconsistent with the Constitution of the USSR and international acts on human rights.

Proposals for the return of the institution of deprivation of citizenship were put forward in modern Russia, despite the prohibition established in Part 3 of Art. 6 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The most illustrative example of this is the draft Federal Law “On Amendments and Additions to the Law of the Russian Federation “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” (on the issue of protecting the geopolitical interests of the Russian Federation)”, introduced in State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on November 22, 1999. The draft law proposed the possibility of depriving the citizenship of the Russian Federation of persons who received the citizenship of the Russian Federation at their request and only on condition that the period of their status in the citizenship of the Russian Federation does not exceed 5 years, in the following cases:

- acquisition of Russian citizenship by deceit, false information about oneself or distortion of factual information that served as the basis for obtaining Russian citizenship;

- advocating forcible change in the foundations of the constitutional order and violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, undermining the security of the state, illegally creating armed groups, inciting social, racial, national and religious hatred or engaging in other activities prosecuted in accordance with federal laws;

- a threat to state and public security, life, health and morality of the population, rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens of the Russian Federation and foreign citizens;

- Establishment by the court of the facts of the commission of crimes against the Russian Federation before or after the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation, provided for by the laws of the Russian Federation or international treaties of the Russian Federation;

- being in the service in the armed forces, internal troops, security agencies, justice agencies of a foreign state or performing duties as an official public institution a foreign state, unless otherwise provided by an international treaty of the Russian Federation;

- a decision of a court of the Russian Federation or a foreign state that has entered into legal force condemning him to imprisonment for a term of at least five years;

- participation in international terrorism, terrorist or fascist organization;

- participation in the illegal sale of weapons or in the illegal circulation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances;

– participation in the illegal crossing of foreign citizens through state border the Russian Federation or the transit of foreign citizens through the territory of the Russian Federation;

- participation in actions aimed at rendering assistance to the enemy during a war in which the Russian Federation participates.

At the same time, the draft provided for a ban on the deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation if, as a result of this, a person becomes stateless. Deprivation of citizenship was proposed to be carried out on the basis of a court decision that has entered into legal force.

As already noted, the Constitution of the Russian Federation in Part 3 of Art. 6 excludes any possibility of deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation. This approach, from the point of view of its assessment of compliance with the interests of the individual and the state, is very complex. On the one hand, this creates additional guarantees of human rights, on the other hand, it excludes the possibility of changing one's attitude towards a citizen due to his behavior and actions. At the same time, it is obvious that this can only apply to naturalized citizens, as evidenced by international practice. According to Professor S.A. Avakyan, it is obvious that Russia will sooner or later return to this problem<16>.

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<16>See: Avakyan S.A. Russia: citizenship, foreigners, external migration. SPb., 2003. S. 25.

Considering the admissibility of deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation, it should be noted that it is conceptually possible, provided that the state has an effective mechanism for ensuring the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, excluding arbitrariness on the part of the state, its bodies and officials. At the same time, when deciding on the issue of deprivation of citizenship, one should take into account the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (for details, see: Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of May 16, 1996 N 12-P “On the case of checking the constitutionality of paragraph “d” of Article 18 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” in connection with the complaint of A.B. Smirnov”), according to which arbitrary, without taking into account the will of a citizen, deprivation or even temporary termination of legally acquired citizenship detracts from the dignity of the individual, which is unacceptable both in the publication and in the application laws.

1. Currently, the termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation in accordance with Art. 18 of the commented Law is possible only on the following grounds:

- due to withdrawal from the citizenship of the Russian Federation (Article 19);

- on other grounds provided for by the commented Law (see the commentary to Articles 21, 24 - 27);

- on other grounds provided for by an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Thus, in the Russian Federation, the termination of citizenship is possible only in the form of expatriation. By virtue of h. 3 Article. 6 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which establishes the impossibility of depriving the citizenship of the Russian Federation, the termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation in the form of denaturalization and denationalization is not applicable. This rule also applies to other grounds for the termination of Russian citizenship, which may be provided for by the commented Law and an international treaty of the Russian Federation. Termination of citizenship on these grounds may differ from the rules established upon renunciation of citizenship, but must be based on the basic principle of expatriation - the voluntary termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation by a person.

In this regard, renunciation of Russian citizenship is the main form of its termination and involves a voluntary expression of will individual to terminate the relationship of citizenship of the Russian Federation.

1. Other grounds for the termination of citizenship are the same grounds as for the acquisition of citizenship: option, adherence by a child (incapacitated person) to the citizenship of his parents, adoptive parents, guardian or guardian (see commentary to Articles 24-27), international agreements by the Russian Federation with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, differing only in the final result - the termination of Russian citizenship.

One should also agree with O.E. Kutafin, who noted that the termination of citizenship may result not only from the renunciation of citizenship, but also from the death of a citizen<17>.

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<17>See Kutafin O.E. Russian citizenship. M., 2003. S. 318.

1. One should not agree with another point of view expressed in legal science, which recognizes as one of the grounds for the termination of citizenship the cancellation of decisions on citizenship issues.<18>.

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<18>See, for example: Kutafin O.E. There. S. 317; Korzh N.Ya. Citizenship of the Russian Federation. Historical and legal aspect. SPb., 2004. S. 128.

Cancellation of the decision is allowed only in case of acquisition of citizenship on the basis of false documents or knowingly false information. In this case, the commented Law, unlike its predecessor, proceeds from the fact that the relations of Russian citizenship are fictitious from the moment they arise and do not give rise to legal consequences, and all rights and obligations arising on their basis are recognized as null and void from the moment they arise. In this regard, in Part 2 of Art. 23 of the commented Law establishes a provision according to which the decision to acquire citizenship is considered invalid from the date of its adoption, and not from the moment of cancellation.

Thus, the decision to cancel Russian citizenship on the basis of acquiring it using knowingly false information and false documents is not a measure of responsibility, but represents a return to its original position, a kind of restitution that is not related to measures of responsibility.<19>.

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<19>See: Avdeenkova M.P., Dmitriev Yu.A. Constitutional law of the Russian Federation. M., 2002. Part I. S. 276.

7. It should be taken into account that the recognition of a person as not being a citizen of the Russian Federation as a result of replacing the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation is not a form of termination of citizenship of the Russian Federation. According to the norms of the commented Law, established by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in the Ruling on the complaint of citizen Streltsova A.M., the applicant was not deprived of citizenship of the Russian Federation: from the materials submitted to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation it follows that due to the loss of the passport of a citizen of the Russian Moscow underwent an examination of the circumstances indicating the presence (or absence) of her citizenship of the Russian Federation, as a result of which a decision was made to recognize her as having not acquired the citizenship of the Russian Federation (for more details, see: Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated July 16, 2009 No. N 921-О-О “On the refusal to accept for consideration the complaint of a citizen Streltsova Alla Mikhailovna on violation of her constitutional rights Federal Law “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” and Decree of the President of the Russian Federation “On Approval of the Regulations on the Procedure for Considering Issues of Citizenship of the Russian Federation”).

While the State Duma is discussing whether it is worth canceling Russian citizenship for terrorists, we suggest studying the current legislation that allows deprivation of Russian citizenship - in what cases does this happen?

Legal grounds

Change of citizenship and cease to be a citizen of Russia can be forced by various circumstances, but most often we are talking about moving to another country. If in many other states “multiple citizenship” is prohibited, Russian legislation is loyal in such practice, and looks at the deprivation of citizenship as a legitimate constitutional right, but on one condition - the act must be absolutely voluntary.

On a note! A Russian cannot revoke his civil rights until he receives citizenship in another state. On the territory of the Russian Federation, he will acquire the status of a foreigner or stateless person.

We list the grounds for deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation:

voluntary desire of a Russian, for example, in the case of immigration;

registration of citizenship of another country;

choice in favor of the citizenship of the adoptive parents;

deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation of minors due to the change of citizenship of parents;

refusal to issue (in this case we are talking more about the impossibility of obtaining documents).

On a note! Withdrawal of a passport is not an act of citizenship annulment.

Of my own free will

If we go over all the reasons for the deprivation of Russian citizenship again (with the exception of the last point), then the fact becomes obvious that each of them is based on the voluntary desire of a person. In addition to it, you will need to collect a weighty package of documents.

Confirmation of the possibility of obtaining citizenship of another state, and each country has its own form of such confirmation.

Valid passport.

Certificate from the tax office on the absence of debts (the processing time is 10 days).

Photo 30x40: both black and white and color photographs are allowed; the main condition is the absence of headdresses, with the exception of religious ones, the clarity of the photograph, and well-defined facial features.

Certificate from the registry office on the change of full name (if any).

The applicant will also have to fill out a form to waive a Russian passport. The standard form is filled out manually (using black or dark blue ink). Errors, typographical errors and corrections are not allowed. You cannot leave blank lines unless there is a special mark "optional".

What should be included on the form?

• Data on minors who are deprived of citizenship together with their parents (if any).

  Information about the parents (if we are talking about the renunciation of the citizenship of the child).

  Full name (current and old, if changed).

  Birthday and place of birth.

  Nationality and religion (optional).

  Education with an indication of the university and data from the diploma (series, date, place of issue), as well as an academic degree (if any)

  Presence/absence of debts.

  Military ID details.

  Certificate of absence / presence of a criminal record.

  Do children moving with adults have a different nationality.

  Contact details (address, telephone).

  Passport data.

  Description of attached documents.

At the end of the form is a personal signature and the date of its completion.

Documents are submitted to the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. If they meet all the requirements, then the applicant receives a notification of the loss of the current status. The passport and birth certificates are returned, and instead of them a certificate-permission for renunciation of Russian citizenship is issued.

On a note! Forms and sample applications can be printed from the official website of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Navigation to the desired section is as follows: Home - Activities - Public services - Main Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia - State function. Citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Where to apply?

The very deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation under the constitution of the Russian Federation is a fairly simple procedure. The collected documents, an application, a passport and a receipt for paying the state duty (from 2000 rubles - depends on the volume of services provided) must be brought to the multifunctional center or department of the UVM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Simplified scheme

You can make a request both on the territory of Russia and abroad. In the latter case, you need to visit the diplomatic mission or consulate of the country where the applicant lives.

You can take advantage of the accelerated consideration of the issue:

those who permanently live in another state;

if there are parents who are citizens of another country.

True, along with the general package of documents, you will have to additionally submit:

application for removal from registration at the place of residence (in connection with the departure for permanent residence abroad);

certificate-confirmation of legal stay in another state.

On a note! If the standard procedure can last up to a year, then according to the simplified scheme, everything will take half as much.

What can get in the way?

The current legislation provides for situations when even a person’s desire will not allow him to stop being a Russian:

the presence of debts (to the country's budget for the payment of taxes, for enforcement proceedings with bailiffs);

the presence of an outstanding criminal record;

a court decision on a ban on leaving the territory of the Russian Federation;

lack of opportunities to obtain another citizenship;

injunction to travel abroad in case of divorce;

deviation from military service;

problems with the submitted documents: they have errors, an incomplete package has been assembled, distortion real facts etc.

It is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question whether deprivation of citizenship exists in Russia. Compulsory - does not exist, although due to the spread of the terrorist threat, the introduction of such sanctions in the near future cannot be ruled out. But voluntary withdrawal is possible.

The point is the following.

Conclusion of the Federal Migration Service for St. Petersburg and Leningrad region dated 06/06/2011 it was established that "You are not a citizen of the Russian Federation".

In this case, the Federal Migration Service acted on the basis of clause 80 of the Order of the FMS of the Russian Federation dated December 7, 2009 N 339 (as amended on October 28, 2011) "On approval administrative regulations Federal Migration Service for granting public service for the issuance, replacement and performance of the state function of registering passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation, proving the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation.

This paragraph sounds like this:

"... 80. If it is established that a passport was issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) passport form, the passport is subject to seizure by the internal affairs body of the Russian Federation or the unit that identified such a passport.
The decision to recognize a passport as issued in violation of the established procedure is made by the head of the territorial body or his deputy.
If there is a technical possibility for the formation in AS "Russian Passport" electronic accounting materials that served as the basis for the decision to recognize the passport as issued in violation of the established procedure, they are scanned using the Territory AWS.
A citizen is issued an act on the withdrawal of a passport. The act shall indicate: the date, place, position and surname of the person who drew up the act, the surname, name and patronymic of the person to whom the passport was issued, the series and number of the withdrawn passport and the reason for its withdrawal. The act is signed by the person who drew it up and approved by the head of the internal affairs body of the Russian Federation or the head of the unit.
The seized passports are sent to the subdivision at the last place of residence of the citizen from whom the passport was seized, or at the place where the passport was issued.
The seized passports received by the subdivisions are destroyed in accordance with the procedure established by the Administrative Regulations. In the application for the issuance (replacement) of a passport in the form of N 1P, a corresponding mark is made, after which the application is placed in the archival card index.
The unit that received the seized passport, but did not issue it before, sends it to the unit that issued said passport, a message in the form N 22P to make an appropriate mark and place an application for the issuance (replacement) of a passport in the form N 1P in the archival file.
If the head of the territorial body or his deputy cancels the decision to recognize the passport as issued in violation of the established procedure, citizens are documented with new passports in accordance with the procedure established by the Administrative Regulations.

Your case is very common.

This very paragraph 80, which gives the FMS employees the right to confiscate a passport, is a derivative norm from paragraph 7 of Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 20, 2006 N 779, which sounds like this:

"A passport issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) passport blank is subject to seizure by the internal affairs body of the Russian Federation, the Federal Migration Service or its territorial agency that has identified such a passport."

In fact, the Federal Migration Service uses this authority in such a way that they confiscate passports and deprive people of Russian citizenship, drawing up a conclusion that such and such "is not a citizen of the Russian Federation."

This practice is illegal. A citizen of the Russian Federation cannot be deprived of his citizenship (Article 6 Part 3 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation).

According to Article 22 of the Federal Law (Federal Law) on citizenship of the Russian Federation, it is possible to recognize as illegal the assignment of Russian citizenship only if there is a court decision on the provision by a citizen of false information and documents.

In this situation, you have two ways to protect your rights in court. Moreover, they do not interfere with each other, i.e. You can move both ways at the same time.

Way one. You can appeal the decision of the state body (Conclusion of the Federal Migration Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region dated 06.06.2011) as being made in excess of authority. Here the clarification of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in its decision of October 19, 2010 N GKPI10-924 (which we will return to in the future) will help you:

"This norm is the subject of its regulation of relations related to the seizure of the main document (passport), when such a document was issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) form, that is, it applies to relations related to the issuance of a passport in circumvention of the established rules, and does not affect issues of citizenship. The withdrawal of such a passport does not in itself entail the deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation, acquired by a person on a legal basis. "
Those. it turns out that the Federal Migration Service could seize your passport, but they were not entitled to decide on your citizenship. Rather, they could solve it only in the manner prescribed by Article 22 of the Federal Law on Citizenship (see above).
You should go to court in accordance with Chapter 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation (Civil Procedure Code) in St. Petersburg (at the place of residence or at the place where the appealed decision was made - Article 254 Part 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation).
You missed the deadline for applying (three months from the day you became aware of the violation of your rights - Article 256 Part 1 of the CPC RF). To resume it, you can contact the head of the Federal Migration Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region or his deputy with a request to cancel the decision (based on paragraph 8 of clause 80 of the Administrative Regulations, see above). He, of course, will refuse, but you will have a three-month period to start anew in order to appeal the last administrative decision that took place.
Here is an example of a court decision in favor of the applicants that has passed the appeal stage and entered into force: http://judicial decisions.rf/bsr/case/2789306 statement.
However, I must inform you that there are also negative decisions in such cases, not in favor of the applicants. Example: Determination of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of January 16, 2013 N 5-APG12-41. His motivational part reads as follows:
"Checking the applicant's arguments about the unlawfulness of the conclusion of the FMS of Russia dated November 22, 2010, the court found that the contested conclusion was adopted in accordance with the powers granted to the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation by the Federal Law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation", by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of November 14, 2002 of the year, which approved the Regulations on the procedure for considering issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation, as well as the Administrative Regulations approved by the Order of the FMS of Russia dated March 19, 2008.
From the evidence presented to the court, it appears that Ikramov D.B. as of February 6, 1992, he did not permanently reside on the territory of the Russian Federation.
According to the available records of the FMS of Russia, the applicant did not apply to the territorial bodies of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation on the issue of acquiring Russian citizenship.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Ikramov D.B. is not listed among the persons who have formalized the acquisition of Russian citizenship in diplomatic missions and consular offices of the Russian Federation.
In such circumstances, the court correctly concluded that the applicant's acquisition of Russian Federation citizenship on the basis of the Russian Federation Law of November 28, 1991 "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation" was not confirmed and the contested conclusion of the FMS of Russia of November 22, 2010 was lawful.
Extradition to Ikramov D.B. passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation does not refute the conclusions of the court that he did not acquire the citizenship of the Russian Federation in the prescribed manner. Moreover, by the conclusion of the FMS of Russia dated November 22, 2010, the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation in the name of Ikramov D.B. recognized as issued in violation of the established procedure.
The appeal Ikramova D.B. does not contain arguments that would be the basis for the annulment of the decision of the court."
Way two. You can contact Supreme Court of the Russian Federation with a statement about the non-compliance of paragraph 80 of the Administrative Regulations with the federal law.
It must be said that such appeals have already taken place before. And the Supreme Court denied the applicants in all cases.
In particular, the Ruling of the Supreme Court dated August 17, 2006 N KAS06-300 explains the following:
"... the passport certifies the citizenship of the Russian Federation, which arises not from this document itself, but on the grounds and in the manner established by this Federal Law and other regulatory legal acts adopted in its development.
... a passport is a document certifying the citizenship of the Russian Federation only if it is issued by an authorized government agency on the appropriate official form, in compliance with the procedure provided for by the said Regulation and the regulatory legal acts adopted in its development. A passport that does not meet these requirements cannot be considered a document and certify the citizenship of the Russian Federation.
The contested normative provisions apply only to relations related to the issuance of a passport in circumvention of established rules and do not affect citizenship issues regulated by Articles 22, 23 of the Federal Law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation", paragraphs 53-55 of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On Approval of the Regulation on procedure for considering issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation". The withdrawal of such a passport does not in itself entail the deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation acquired by a person on a legal basis.
Consequently, the rules on the seizure of an improper passport, which is not a document certifying the citizenship of the Russian Federation, do not affect the rights and freedoms of a citizen guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, laws and other regulatory legal acts.
A passport issued in violation of the established procedure, as well as made using a lost (stolen) original passport form, is the subject of an administrative offense under Article 19.23 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, if the actions of the person who committed it do not contain signs of a crime under Article 292 or Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
The powers of the internal affairs bodies (militia) to seize such passports as related to the subjects of an administrative offense directly follow from paragraph 4 of part 1 of article 27.1, article 27.10, paragraph 1 of part 2 of article 28.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
Further, in the Ruling of the Supreme Court of August 27, 2007 N GKPI07-787 in a similar case, it is explained:
"Regulatory legal acts on the main document certifying the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation establish that a passport is a document certifying the citizenship of the Russian Federation only if it is issued by an authorized state body on an appropriate official letterhead, in compliance with the established procedure.
A passport that does not meet these requirements cannot be considered a document proving the identity and citizenship of the Russian Federation.
The norm of paragraph 7 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation is the subject of its regulation of relations related to the seizure of the main document (passport), when such a document was issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) form, i.e. apply to relations related to the issuance of a passport in circumvention of established rules, and does not affect issues of citizenship. The withdrawal of such a passport does not in itself entail the deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation acquired by a person on a legal basis.
And, finally, in the mentioned decision of the Supreme Court dated October 19, 2010 No. GKPI10-924 it is said:
"The Government of the Russian Federation adopted Decree of July 8, 1997 N 828 "On approval of the Regulations on the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, a sample form and description of a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation" (hereinafter referred to as the Decree). Clause 7 of the Decree, as amended on December 20, 2006 ., it is fixed that a passport issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) passport form is subject to seizure by the internal affairs body of the Russian Federation, the Federal Migration Service or its territorial agency that has identified such a passport.
Consequently, the rule on the seizure of a passport issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) passport form is established not by the Administrative Regulations, where it is only reproduced, but by the Resolution.
By the effective decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated August 27, 2007 in case N GKPI07-787, clause 7 of the Decree was recognized as complying with the current legislation of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the court decision states that this norm is the subject of its regulation of relations related to the seizure of the main document (passport), when such a document was issued in violation of the established procedure or issued on a lost (stolen) form, that is, it applies to relations related to issuance of a passport, bypassing the established rules, and does not affect issues of citizenship. The withdrawal of such a passport does not in itself entail the deprivation of citizenship of the Russian Federation acquired by a person on a legal basis.
In view of the foregoing, the court cannot agree with the applicant's argument about the contradiction of paragraph 80 of the Administrative Regulations with Article 22 of the Federal Law, which provides that the decision to acquire or terminate the citizenship of the Russian Federation is subject to cancellation if it is established that this decision was made on the basis of false documents submitted by the applicant or knowingly false information. The fact of the use of forged documents or the communication of deliberately false information is established in a judicial proceeding. It can be seen from the above legal provision that it regulates the issues of canceling the decision to acquire or terminate the citizenship of the Russian Federation, and not the withdrawal of a passport issued in circumvention of the established rules.
The last chance to challenge the relevant norms in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, I see, is to appeal against them on the grounds of uncertainty. On this basis, as far as I know, they have not yet appealed and the Supreme Court has not considered this issue.
"Checking the content of the challenged act or part thereof, it is also necessary to find out whether it is certain. If the challenged act or part of it causes an ambiguous interpretation, the court does not have the right to eliminate this uncertainty by obliging the decision of the body or official to make changes or additions to the act, since such actions of the court will be a violation of the competence of the body or official that adopted this normative legal act.In this case, the disputed act in such a wording is recognized as invalid in whole or in part, with an indication of the reasons for the decision.
At the same time, a normative legal act cannot be recognized as invalid if the court comes to the conclusion that, in terms of its content, the disputed act or part of it does not allow the interpretation given to it in the course of law enforcement. This conclusion must be substantiated in the decision of the court."
(clause 25 of the Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated November 29, 2007 No. 48)
The uncertainty of this norm lies in the fact that the FMS uses it to recognize a person as not having Russian citizenship, about which he makes an appropriate conclusion. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the Supreme Court explained three times that the FMS does not have such a right under the law and its decision to withdraw a passport should not prejudge the issue of the presence or absence of Russian citizenship. Thus, the uncertainty of this norm in practice leads to its broad interpretation to the detriment of the rights and legitimate interests of a citizen.
We have the following agreement with Dmitry Pavlov. He (and his staff) provides you with legal assistance in full, including, if necessary, representing your interests in the courts of St. Petersburg.

Does an FMS official have the right to deprive a Russian of his passport and citizenship of the Russian Federation?

In Russia, not the first year there is a campaign to verify the legality of the acquisition or registration of citizenship, as a result of which thousands of people overnight declared\"non-citizens \". Their passports are confiscated and they are offered to go through the procedure of acquiring Russian citizenship. At the same time, in our country, as you know, without a passport it is impossible even to buy a train ticket, not to mention getting medical care and the realization of many other vital rights and freedoms.

A visit to the territorial body of the FMS on a routine issue - exchanging a passport or obtaining citizenship for a child - can turn into a long nightmare with the seizure of a passport, deprivation civil rights and months of anxiety. What to do if you become another victim of this campaign? Where to apply? And how is this all legal? A human rights activist from the city of Tarusa answered these and other questions to a correspondent of Lenta.ru Ludmila Zhirova, which has extensive experience in defending the interests of citizens in court, including on issues of Russian citizenship.

Lenta.Ru: Lyudmila Andreevna, what categories of Russians, in your experience, fall into the\"zone of risk \" and may face difficulties when applying to the Federal Migration Service when processing documents?

Lyudmila Zhirova: Having analyzed hundreds of stories related to the seizure of passports, we can say that practically the entire population of the country, mostly former citizens of the USSR, was in the \"risk zone\". Any Russian citizen can suddenly find out that his passport\"issued unreasonably \" or\"in violation of the established procedure \", or even just get a resolution like\"as a result of the check, it was found that you are not a citizen of the Russian Federation \".

Anyone who applies to the passport department at the place of residence regarding the exchange of a passport by age, registration of a foreign passport, registration of citizenship for children, as well as a change of surname, damage, loss of a passport, the FMS can declare \"non-citizen\" and oblige to re-pass the procedure for acquiring citizenship or prove that it was acquired legally. Even pensioners who have an unlimited passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, issued at the age of 45, fall under this\"skating rink \", because they can lose or spoil their passport. The citizenship of the elderly is also questioned if their children, who applied for their documents or those of their grandchildren, formalized their citizenship based on the citizenship of their parents.

In such cases,\"suspects \" are already all family members, long-term checks of the legality of the acquisition or registration of citizenship of the Russian Federation, that is,\"validity \" of issuing passports, begin. As a result, those who applied to the FMS and their children become\"non-citizens \" of Russia, and the passports of Russian citizens are confiscated from them.

And what is the most common reason to start checking?

From experience, I can say that those who were not born in Russia (RSFSR) have the highest chance of attracting the attention of the Federal Migration Service. And if he was born, he did not have permanent registration in Russia on February 6, 1992 - the date the law \"On Citizenship of the Russian Federation\" of November 18, 1991 came into force, which came into force on February 6, 1992.

According to this law, everyone who was born on the territory of Russia (RSFSR, Russian Empire), children of Russians, regardless of their place of birth, as well as all citizens former USSR who, as of February 6, 1992, permanently resided in Russia. These people did not need to obtain, or rather, acquire citizenship, the state recognized its existence\"automatically \" and in the 1990s it was simply issued.

The by-laws and instructions included only one condition for the acquisition of citizenship by adults by way of recognition - by date of residence. Information was transferred to the database of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the FMS about those who acquired citizenship, and not those who already had it by recognition or by birth. If now it does not contain information about the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation, then the\"suspects \" are required to either present a document on permanent registration in Russia on February 6, 1992, or to establish the fact of permanent residence on that date in court.

In addition, FMS officials argue that recognition of citizenship by birth only applies to persons born after the entry into force of the 1991 law. Thus, if the FMS has doubts that a person was registered in Russia on that date, a check begins with all the ensuing consequences.

What are these\"consequences \"?

In fact, this is the deprivation of all civil rights. Because the existing passport is either withdrawn or refused to be exchanged, and no other documents are issued at all. Neither a residence permit nor a temporary residence permit is issued in return, that is, a person is left without an identity card. Newly appeared\"non-citizen \" is deprived of all constitutional rights and freedoms, including vital: the right to receive pensions, benefits, freedom of movement. Practice shows that people can be in this position for months and even years.

Is there a statute of limitations for citizenship cases? After all, it is already very difficult to find evidence of what happened almost twenty years ago?

The first law on citizenship of the Russian Federation of 1991 stated that\"cancellation of the decision on admission to the citizenship of the Russian Federation is possible within five years after admission \". In accordance with this, all cases on the issuance of passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation when acquiring or registering citizenship could be destroyed in five years. Including USSR passports with\"registration \" inserts and other documents.

In some places there were folders with cases on acquiring citizenship in the order of registration or in the general procedure (the latter were decided by the president or the commission under the president on citizenship issues), but cases on registration of citizenship by recognition (in fact of residence in Russia as of February 6, 1992 ) or by birth it didn’t start at all, that’s the thing! In the surviving inserts and in the 1P forms (this is the standard application form for issuing a passport, it has been kept in passport departments for 85 years), only the basis for issuing a passport is indicated.

Now the FMS is questioning these grounds, believing that the person did not have a permanent residence permit or the citizenship of the parents was allegedly incorrectly determined, and therefore the person does not have Russian citizenship either. And they, these grounds, were and are, or there were others, also legitimate. Sometimes, after all, it is simply a typo or an inspector's mistake, for example, the number of the article of the law or part of it is indicated incorrectly.

According to the current law\"On Citizenship dated 05/31/2002 \" N 62-FZ, such a statute of limitations is not set, that is, the cancellation of a decision on the issue of citizenship seems to happen at any time, even decades after its registration or adoption.

However, it makes sense to remind all law enforcers and\"suspected\" citizens of Article 5 of the law of 2002, according to which the citizens of the Russian Federation are\"persons who have citizenship of the Russian Federation on the date of entry into force of this Federal Law \".

If the FMS believes that during the registration (or acquisition) of citizenship a forgery was committed or a forgery of documents took place, then this should be proved in court before making a decision\"on the absence of citizenship\", especially\"assume\", as write in the conclusions of the inspectors departments of the FMS that\"passport should be seized and destroyed \".

Let's still deal with\"registration \" and\"residence \" on February 6, 1992. What was meant by the law?

The law refers specifically to residence on the territory of the Russian Federation, and it can be confirmed in different ways. But let me remind you once again that we are not obliged to prove anything if we have a legally issued passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation. In the presence of a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, if it is necessary to exchange it or register citizenship for children, officials do not have the right to demand that the fact of residence be established, and even more so, they do not have the right to confiscate a passport.

When applying for citizenship of the Russian Federation many years ago by recognition (under Part 1 of Article 13 of the Law\"On Citizenship\" of 1991), it was possible to present, in addition to registration information, other information about residence - documents on labor activity, study, treatment, birth and upbringing of children in Russia (including school certificates) and so on. It was possible, in the absence or insufficiency of documents, to establish the fact of permanent residence and in a judicial proceeding with the involvement of witnesses.

In your opinion, what is happening is connected with the imperfection of the laws or is it the arbitrariness of a single department?

The perfection of our law\"On Citizenship \" (both old and current), I have no doubt. The 1991 law states that a decision on admission to citizenship can only be canceled within five years, but only if the person has submitted false documents or knowingly false information about himself. At the same time, this cancellation does not apply to the spouse and children who acquired citizenship with him, if they were not aware of the illegal actions of their parents.

The current law specifies the same grounds for annulment of a decision, but the term for annulment is not explicitly stated. But there are articles 5 and 42, which I mentioned above. But they are simply ignored, despite the fact that the norms of Article 22 of the law are also reflected in the by-law - the Regulations on the Procedure for Considering Citizenship Issues (paragraphs 51-55). But the FMS found a\"good \" argument:\"since there was no decision on admission to citizenship, then there is nothing to cancel! \".

Yes, in case of recognition under Article 13 and by birth (Articles 14 and 15), the decision to acquire, more precisely, to receive citizenship, was not required to be made, because citizenship was simply formalized. There were both inspector's mistakes and typos: for example, instead of article 13, article 18 is indicated in the insert (and this is an acquisition that really did not exist).

But, in my opinion, and as was stated in one of the decisions of the court, the person competent to issue a passport in the presence of citizenship by law, and made the corresponding decision, which can be canceled only in the circumstances specified in article 22 (forgery, false information and fault citizen). After all, the citizen did not violate the laws at the same time, he received the passport from the hands of the inspector and completed all the prescribed procedures.

Here it is necessary to state the history of the issue, perhaps it is unknown to the general public. In 2003, after an internal audit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation\"suddenly\" it turned out that in some passport and visa services there was a conspiracy of employees with\"intermediaries \", abuse of official position, registration Russian passports foreign citizens, even those who are wanted. Several criminal cases were initiated against employees of the passport and visa services.

And the seizure of passports from Russian citizens began by order of the then head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov dated March 6, 2003 No. 1/1487. And after order No. 1/2074 of March 22, 2004, already signed by Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, it acquired the character of an "epidemic". Let me remind you that on the eve of the preparation of a new law on citizenship (2001-2002) in almost all passport and visa services, the corridors were filled with queues of people who arrived on the territory of the Russian Federation in the late 80s and early 90s with USSR passports in order to have time to apply for citizenship under a simplified version - in the order of registration.

But the paperwork for citizenship was\"slowed down \" officials allegedly in anticipation of a new law. But through the\"back door \" officials profited from the ignorance of citizens in procedural matters. Not far from passport office District Department of Internal Affairs or directly on the territory of the District Department of Internal Affairs located group\"assistance to foreign citizens \". The procedure was expedited, or skipped, sometimes they provided fictitious registration at the place of residence on February 6, 1992 on the territory of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, almost all former citizens of the USSR had legal grounds to apply for the acquisition of citizenship in a simplified manner under Article 18 of the law \"On Citizenship\" in force at that time, or for registration of citizenship by birth, or by recognition - by residence on February 6, 1992 on the territory of the Russian Federation and, of course, for the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation in the general manner.

However, as a result, the campaign to check the performance of officials turned against us, the citizens. Criminal cases against officials, as a rule, were terminated over the years, some of them got off with a small fine or an amnesty, that is, a slight fright. Many were simply retired due to age. But citizens with\"erroneously \" issued passports began to\"guard \" through the linear police departments, banks, registration chambers, to confiscate passports\"on the go, \" without the procedure for depriving the status of a citizen in accordance with the law, even without issuing another passport instead of the seized identity cards.

Cases of illegal seizure of passports of citizens of the Russian Federation and the number of lawsuits became especially frequent in 2006, when issues of citizenship and passportization were transferred from the UVIR of the RF Internal Affairs Directorate to the Federal Migration Service of Russia. And this despite the fact that Nurgaliev's order dated October 24, 2006 No. 1/8562, the previous order to conduct a\"total check \" of passports was declared invalid.

So maybe the citizens themselves are to blame? They tried to get citizenship, passports as soon as possible, and that's\"wound up \", and now the FMS is raking it all up and putting things in order?

Undoubtedly, there were cases of obvious forgery of documents with a fake residence permit on February 6 through intermediaries who were in collusion with officials (who persistently convinced everyone that only she confirms the recognition of Russian citizenship), and citizens could know about this, but their guilt should be proven.

And there are procedures for investigating, bringing officials to justice - for this, in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, back in 2004, an internal audit was carried out. But it turned out to be a revision of the law by the FMS, ignoring by officials of the old instructions, according to which citizenship, for example, for Russian military personnel and members of their families who are outside Russia, was issued through the commander of a military unit.

What databases could be there? If you decide to put things in order in these databases, then after the check, information about the checked passport (citizenship) must be entered into the database, or the article of the law according to which the person has issued or acquired Russian citizenship must be clarified.

Not all commanders of military units understood citizenship issues, but all military personnel who served in Russian army on February 6, 1992, or who have taken the oath of Russia, are recognized as citizens of the Russian Federation, respectively, and their children cannot fall under\"suspicion \". Also, their wives, even if they did not have citizenship by birth, then, living on the territory of the military unit, were also recognized as Russians. Either they were issued (or could be issued) citizenship under Article 18 - in the order of registration. However, in Lately military personnel and their families especially often fall into the\"zone of risk \" as allegedly obtained citizenship illegally.

How does the prosecutor's office react to what is happening?

Prosecutor's offices different levels have repeatedly recognized the practice of confiscating passports as illegal. As an example, we can cite the presentation of the prosecutor's office of the Saratov region to the local bodies of the Federal Migration Service. In some cases, these ideas have led to a positive result.

But in dozens of stories that are described on my consultation forum, the reaction of prosecutors on the ground was zero ("You did not acquire citizenship" and so on), even after the court decision! There were many appeals from the victims to the Prosecutor General's Office, to the President, to the Commissioner for Human Rights.

There are also many judgments, who recognized the actions of the FMS of Russia to confiscate passports as illegal. In the fall of 2008, the Prosecutor General's Office pointed out to the Russian Federal Migration Service that there were massive violations of the deadlines for issuing foreign passports for Russian citizens, which were connected precisely with citizenship checks. Passports began to be issued on time, but after a short time internal passport declared on the initiative of the FMS wanted, then withdrawn, respectively, and the passport became invalid.

And as a result, under pressure from the press, television, which, albeit with large bills, but talked about the victims of\"bad law\", in April 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation recognized as illegal the practice of seizing passports and refusing to exchange them, if there are no illegal citizen action. It was also declared illegal to require a passport holder to confirm his citizenship or to establish in court the fact of permanent residence on February 6, 1992.

That is, the Prosecutor General's Office supported the position of human rights activists?

Yes. And the case was not limited to the statement of facts - the Prosecutor General's Office instructed the prosecutors of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to turn Special attention to violations of the law in this area and to stop the facts of illegal seizure of passports. \"When violations are detected in without fail raise the question of the responsibility of guilty officials, up to dismissal,\" the document says.

We, human rights activists, hoped that with the release of this document the situation would change dramatically. However, while these hopes have not come true - the situation has not changed. Apparently, the\"skating rink \" a lot of inertia. And although recently the FMS does not confiscate a passport, but it cannot be used, since it has been declared or will be declared invalid, it will be put on the wanted list, and the citizenship of the Russian Federation is still\"withdrawn\" until\"establishment of the legal status of a person \" - so they decided to the FMS to respond to the instructions of the Prosecutor General's Office, and allegedly in agreement with it.

Is the withdrawal of a passport tantamount to deprivation of citizenship? In what cases do FMS employees have the right to confiscate a passport?

The passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation can be withdrawn in administrative order, if it was issued on a stolen or fake letterhead, issued by an unauthorized body or in violation of the established procedure, as indicated in paragraph 7 of Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 07/08/1997 N 828.

But it is precisely this point that the employees of the FMS departments refer to in their conclusions on the absence of citizenship. Sometimes the court also refers to this point, unfortunately, without applying the norms of the law\"On Citizenship \" and the Regulations on the Procedure for Considering Citizenship Issues.

The decision, as well as paragraph 80 of the Administrative Regulations of the FMS for the provision of services for issuing a passport, refers only to the procedure for issuing passports specified in the Regulation on the Passport. And the procedure for registration (acquisition) of citizenship of the Russian Federation is regulated by the Regulations on the procedure for considering issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation and paragraph 82 of the above regulations. And if there are doubts about the legality of acquiring citizenship, we again recall Article 22 of the current law \"On Citizenship\", which says that the fact of forgery must be established in court, only after that the decision on the issue of citizenship can be canceled.

FMS employees, objecting to our references to Article 22, point out that since there is no registration on February 6, 1992, and there is no information on the acquisition of citizenship in the database, it means that there was no decision on the acquisition of citizenship, therefore, there is nothing to cancel. But after all, the database does not contain information about persons who have citizenship by birth, recognized as citizens by the date of residence, recognized as having been restored to citizenship in 1994 (under Article 20 of the 1991 law). And in the 1990s, rather competent inspectors worked in the passport services, in the UVIRs, whose actions when issuing passports are now unreasonably recognized as illegal or erroneous.

At the same time, they themselves\"release \" from liability, because the statute of limitations has passed or they have already been fired. And their decisions, as I already explained, if they were erroneous, then the citizen’s fault is not in this. But for some reason, now an innocent passport holder is punished with deprivation of citizenship.

I personally do not know from what year the database referred to by the FMS has been maintained, how this database was compiled - according to passports or those who acquired citizenship, whether information from all UVIRs got into it, whether materials were destroyed after the expiration of five years, in accordance with the law of 1991 of the year. Not to mention the cases of destruction of documents in fires, natural disasters and so on.

There was a case when, to a request from the FMS department of one of the districts of the Moscow region from another district, they answered that\"we do not have information about the basis for issuing the insert, since not all materials were preserved during the move\". And this served as the basis for the fact that in the city of Orekhovo-Zuyevo a Russian citizen was denied the exchange of a passport when changing her last name - she did not prove, they say, that she is a citizen of Russia. I had to go to court.

What to do if the FMS passport declared\"unreasonably issued \"? Where to go when you can sue?

First of all - do not panic and do not complex. You are not a criminal or a delinquent. First of all, you need to get a refusal to carry out the procedure for which you applied to the territorial division of the Federal Migration Service (passport exchange, registration of the child's citizenship, or for another reason). By the way, the registration of the citizenship of the child should not be delayed due to the verification of your citizenship. All communication with the Federal Migration Service about your problem is only in writing.

It is advisable to figure out for yourself how you acquired citizenship - by birth, by recognition or by admission, on what grounds. If you have not committed illegal acts, forgeries, then be sure that it is not so easy to deprive you of the status of a citizen. Especially now, when there is at least some support from the Prosecutor General's Office in the form of instructions to local prosecutors to control compliance with the law. But don’t make a mistake yourself, you may eventually have to go to court, which in most regions is quite independent in matters of citizenship.

The refusal of the FMS will indicate why your passport\"invalid \" and does not certify your Russian citizenship. Do not hand over the passport, wait for a decision on its withdrawal - after the decision of the authorized body, and this should be the decision of the FMS of Russia or the FMS of the region. The conclusion of the authorized body should indicate what kind of check (for what) was carried out and what it found: you provided false information about your person, a stolen passport form or a fake form. Or the FMS considered, for example, that at the time of obtaining a passport you did not have the right to acquire Russian citizenship at all.

Depending on the grounds for refusal, you will file a complaint with the court. More precisely, with a statement in the manner of Article 254 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation on this conclusion and / or decision, or immediately on the fact of seizure. And you will prove that in the 1990s or even after July 1, 2002, you found a provision of the law that applies to your situation. We turned to the PVS (passport and visa service) with your documents, where they helped you decide, submitted all the required documents, and as a result, you were issued citizenship of the Russian Federation and issued a passport.

You did not forge a passport, did not buy it around the corner, but legally received it from the hands of a state representative. In addition, any decision on the issue of citizenship can be appealed by contacting the President of the Russian Federation, who has the legal right to cancel the decisions of the competent authority or restore persons to the citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Have you tried contacting the President?

In December 2008, the victims of the FMS sent a collective appeal to the President, the State Duma, and the Federal Assembly. The leadership of the FMS replied: unsubscribed to the Duma at the request of the deputy and each of those who applied for his problem, but the essence of the answers was the same as before- \"you are not a citizen of the Russian Federation, you must hand over your passport and purchase...\". However, already in April 2009, the position of the FMS changed somewhat - in connection with the instructions of the Prosecutor General's Office to stop the seizure of passports.

Personal complaints to the head of state against the FMS - and there are a lot of them - from the presidential administration are sent for consideration to the FMS - with reference to the Law on the Procedure for Considering Citizens' Appeals. But the procedure for considering citizens' appeals established by this law does not apply to those appeals that are subject to consideration in the manner established by federal constitutional laws and other federal laws.

The Law\"On Citizenship \", being federal, established that it was the President of the Russian Federation who had the right to cancel the decision on citizenship of the Russian Federation, taken by another competent authority. This is indicated in the articles and the law on citizenship, and in paragraph 54 of the Regulations on the procedure for considering issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation.

If you were deprived of citizenship by the FMS, then, apart from the court, only the president has the right to cancel this decision. And to whom, if not to the president, should a citizen turn? And the decision that was made many years ago in the OVIR, which no longer exists, should also be canceled by the president on the proposal of the FMS, but not by the FMS itself (such is the meaning of Article 23). And here is an example of such an appeal.

However, the result is the same: the appeal of a citizen, addressed personally to the president, from his administration (and not a proposal from the administration or presidential assistant to the FMS - for example, to prepare a draft of the corresponding decree) was forwarded to the FMS with a standard reference to paragraph 3 of article 8 of the law on appeals, despite the fact that it is the president who is authorized to consider this issue.

We understand that a dispute about the place of a fence between sites or an incorrect charge for utilities should not be addressed to the president. But in this case, we are not talking about a complaint against an ordinary official or a neighbor, but about the annulment of a decision on the issue of citizenship, specifically, about the deprivation of citizenship. Consultants to the presidential administration should have more carefully read the law they refer to and the articles we refer to in our address to the head of state.

When analyzing some cases, it turns out that the PVS employees made a mistake. That is, a citizen had the right to obtain citizenship under one article, and he was issued under another. Now the FMS declares the illegality of obtaining citizenship. How are such cases dealt with in terms of the law?

Again we have to refer to article 22 of the law\"On citizenship \". If the court does not establish the fact of forgery or the provision of deliberately false information, no one has the right to deprive the status of a citizen and simply confiscate a passport.

\"Good \" if there was simply a typo or an error in the indication of the article on the basis of which the citizenship of the Russian Federation was issued (or acquired). At the same time, the former citizen of the USSR had the opportunity to purchase (or issue) under another article, and this can be proved to a sane checking official or in court. Good - in quotation marks, because litigation with officials is inevitable, up to success in court or deprivation of citizenship.

Here, for example, is the case of citizen B., which was considered in 2003 in Kislovodsk. When considering the statement about the illegality of the destruction of the insert about the person's belonging to the citizenship of the Russian Federation, the court found that B. had the right to acquire citizenship under paragraph\"a\" of Article 18 of the law\"On citizenship of the Russian Federation\" dated 11/28/1991 in the order of registration, since since 1990 he was married to a citizen of Russia.

And he was issued an insert regarding the first part of Article 13 - on residence on February 6, 1992. Therefore, the court decided that as a result of the incorrect application of the current legislation, B. was deprived of the opportunity to acquire Russian citizenship on legal grounds. As a result of a mistake, he was recognized as a citizen of the Russian Federation, but on a different basis. But, since B. provided reliable information about himself and did not commit forgery, the passport department unlawfully refused to document him with a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation.

Since the citizen did not violate the laws and had the right to acquire citizenship, the court invalidated the decision of the employee of the Kislovodsk GOVD to cancel the decision to recognize B. as a citizen of the Russian Federation and ordered him to issue a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation.

It is much worse when citizenship was issued legally more than 10 years ago, and FMS employees suddenly \"find a mistake\" of a former employee of the PVS, which in fact was not, and seize a passport when there is no one's fault, especially a Russian citizen. The fact is that the Federal Migration Service interprets the norms of laws in its own way, such as, for example, on the permanence of residence, on the acquisition of citizenship by birth, the acquisition of citizenship by children, and ignores the court documents of the Constitutional Court. Sometimes they even suddenly recognize someone or his children as a citizen of some republic of the CIS. You have to go to court.

How do you assess the judicial practice in citizenship cases? How likely is it that the judiciary will protect the legal rights of a citizen?

My personal experience trials in cases of non-recognition of citizenship of persons with a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation has positive statistics. You can learn more about court cases and decisions on our forum. There are already hundreds of them. And statistics show that the court is well versed in the law on citizenship, if the applicant or his representative himself understood his citizenship.

Unfortunately, most of our victories occurred in the regions. In Moscow, it is much more difficult to prove one's case. Especially, in the Moscow City Court when considering cassation cases. There are examples when the court agrees with the arguments of the FMS about the existence of an error in determining citizenship by employees of the former PVS. And the legal decision of the first instance is cancelled.

In a situation similar to the story in Kislovodsk, the Moscow City Court overturned the decision of the district court, sent the case for a new trial, which dragged on for a long time, and then the actions of the FMS to confiscate the passport were recognized as legal. Although the decision of the court of first instance states that the divisions of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation, when deciding on the unjustified issuance of a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation to the applicant, did not take into account the existence at the time of issuance of the passport of circumstances indicating the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation in the order of registration in the presence of a relative, in this case, the mother, who direct ascending line was at that time a citizen of the Russian Federation.

The Moscow City Court recently canceled a court decision, which confirmed the legality of obtaining citizenship and actually established the fact of permanent residence in Moscow on the cherished date of citizen Yu., sending the case for a new trial. The Moscow City Court, contrary to its previous practice, the instructions of the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, does not consider residence to be permanent if a person studied at that time, lived in a hostel, at the same time started a family, worked and had no citizenship other than Russian.

And he considers it possible to deprive citizens of passports and citizenship, despite the fact that even if you agree with this interpretation of the concept of\"residence \", now, after 10-17 years, doing this in the absence of illegal actions of the citizen himself is prohibited by law. I must say that it is almost impossible to initiate supervisory proceedings in the Supreme Court on the basis of a citizen's complaint, but there was a case to cancel a decision that was in favor of a citizen, on a complaint from the Federal Migration Service!

Previously, it was possible to achieve at least a reclamation of the case, to get a refusal with objections to our arguments. Now it seems that the complaint does not reach the judges of the Supreme Court. Two or three sentences are rewritten from the decision of the previous instance, but our arguments are not refuted, except that there is a standard phrase - \"the arguments of the complaint contain a different interpretation of the law \", or\"a different assessment of the evidence \".

This situation with the unwillingness of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to check such cases has not surprised me for a long time, since I lost the case of Irina, a Russian citizen by birth, won in the district court back in 2004 in the regional court. Something has changed in the country with regard to the native Russians, and in general to the entire population, or maybe it's the economy that sets its own\"conditions\"...

What do you have in mind?

I mean\"care \" of the country's budget. Consideration of an application for the acquisition of citizenship is paid by a state duty in the amount of 1000 rubles. And if a million citizens acquire citizenship again, then this is already a billion. And if they first force them to obtain a residence permit, then a residence permit with the same fee, then this is already three billion. Not so much, but\"with the world on a thread - a naked shirt\". And different offices are involved in the registration procedure - notaries, photographers, translators for preparing documents on letterheads, and there are also laboratories for issuing medical certificates - for a fee. And this is employment and, accordingly, taxes to the budget ...

Returning to judicial practice: is it worth going to court?

Of course it's worth it. And not only on issues of citizenship. Judges understand our laws well, and it is not so easy to justify lawlessness as officials do, and so far there is no other way to restore a violated right if you do not want to "surrender" to the mercy of an official. And it is thanks to the court that we have achieved something.

For example, the Agreement of 4 republics - Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - on the registration procedure for acquiring citizenship in Russia began to really work only from November 13, 2003, after a decision was made in the Tarussky District Court, although the Agreement entered into force as early as January 2000 of the year. Prior to this, officials differently understood the concept of\"accommodation \" than specified in the Agreement.

There are simply precedents, such as recognition of citizenship by birth, which for six years they did not want to recognize in the FMS department, because the person was born in Kazakhstan, recognition of Russian citizenship, despite already having a different citizenship (and a passport of another country) .

Court decisions are the material on which citizens improve their level of legal literacy, and serve as an example of dispute resolution for judges who encounter this topic for the first time, as they contain references to the provisions of laws on citizenship, to decisions of the Constitutional Court and other documents.

I personally think that without court stories, many of which got into the press, there would be no instructions from the Prosecutor General's Office. But it is strange and insulting that from 1992 to the present time, the Supreme Court has never expressed its opinion on the resolution of disputes on issues of citizenship and the deprivation of citizenship status by withdrawing a passport.

And there are only three main issues that need to be addressed - about the permanence of residence, about the recognition of citizenship by birth and about the withdrawal of a passport because of the "absence" of citizenship after it has been available for many years.

And such questions were raised before the Supreme Court. In December 2006, I personally sent a packet of court decisions and a request to the Russian Supreme Court to the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. On March 14, 2007, a message was sent to me that everything was sent to the Supreme Court, and already on March 16 everything returned from the Supreme Court with an explanation that the materials would be used in studying issues related to the application by Russian courts of the legislation on citizenship of the Russian Federation. Both envelopes were received on the same day.

We wait. But the Supreme Court is silent. So it must be so. We have to fight lawlessness on our own.