Report on refugees, forced migrants, and propiska in Russia
Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 16:46:58 +0300 (EET DST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Report on refugees, forced migrants, and propiska in Russia
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Alexander Ossipov <[email protected]>
Report on refugees, forced migrants, and propiska in Russia
Dear Boris,
This report was kindly placed at my disposal by Svetlana Gannushkina,
a member of the Memorial HRC. She says that she would be glad if this
text is used by MINELRES.
Many thanks in advance.
Sasha Ossipov
------------------------------------------------------------
(From the moderator: The full text of Svetlana Gannushkina's report -
30 Kb in plain text - is available from the MINELRES files by request.
The text will be also placed on the MINELRES Russia page soon.
Boris)
------------------
*Memorial* Human Rights Center
*Civic Assistance* Committee
On the Situation Relating to According the Status to Refugees and
Forced Migrants and Registration at the Place of Residence and Place
of Sojourn in the Moscow Region
Moscow, 1998
This report analyzes the situation relating to according status to
refugees and forced migrants, and to their registration at the place
of residence and the place of sojourn in the City of Moscow and Moscow
Oblast. The situation in this region is a matter of special concern
because the condition of migrants in the capital is worsening.
Moreover, Moscow has always set an example for Russia's other regions;
following in its steps, more than 20 of them have passed statutes that
contradict the law and are violating federal laws and local rules by
their practical actions.
I would like to stress that in terms of percentage, the number of
officially recognized refugees and forced migrants in Moscow is much
lower than on average in Russia.
Registered in Russia:
1995 274,000
1996 172,000
1997 120,000 (including 500 refugees)
Registered in Moscow:
1992-1993 12,593
1994 3,140
1995 612
1996 670
1997 1,261 (including 35 refugees)
Legal position relating to registration and according status. The RF
Law *On the Citizens' Right to Free Travel and Choice of the Place of
Residence* passed in June 1993 abolished the institution of residence
registration and introduced registration upon application. The RF
Government Resolution #713 of July 17, 1995 designed to create a
mechanism for enforcing the Law in fact retained residence
registration with all the restrictions arising from it, changing only
the terminology. Permanent registration is now called registration at
the place of residence, and temporary registration*registration at the
place of sojourn. The Law has set new limits on registration at the
place of sojourn, *up to six months*, and does not indicate how often
it may be resumed, as a result of which the bodies of the Ministry for
Internal Affairs began to interpret and apply this provision
arbitrarily and currently permit registration at the place of sojourn
for the term of up to six months and not more often than once a year.
Registration may not be resumed in the same year.
The registration rules operating in the City of Moscow and Moscow
Oblast (Joint Resolution of the Governments of the City of Moscow and
Moscow Oblast #1030-43, December 17, 1996 edition) further narrowed
down the rights of citizens; specifically, they confined the range of
persons who may register at the place of residence to the close
relatives of the owner of the housing and introduced a floor space
quota required for registration at the place of residence (12 m2 per
person counting the persons applying for registration) and at the
place of sojourn (6 m2). Since the persons arriving to Moscow are to
register at the place of sojourn within three days of arrival, under
the new registration rules Muscovites, whose housing conditions are
usually modest enough, have no legal right not only to give shelter to
refugees and forced migrants but even to have guests from outside
Moscow.
The refugees and forced migrants who have the relevant status and have
arrived from former Soviet republics find registration somewhat
easier: the length of their registration at the place of sojourn is
not restricted by the rules, provided they carry a certificate issued
by the migration service of Moscow.
It is important and encouraging that in the past two years, the
registration rules have changed for the better. The RF Government
Resolution #290 passed on March 12, 1997 extended the rules of the
registration of the citizens of Russia at the place of residence and
the place of sojourn to all the citizens of the former Soviet Union
arriving from the CIS states and the Baltics. On April 4, 1996, the RF
Constitutional Court recognized as unconstitutional the huge fee
charged by the Government of Moscow for registration at the place of
residence in purchased housing, following which the relevant paragraph
was removed from the Rules of Registration in the City of Moscow and
Moscow Oblast (Resolution #979).
However, Resolution #290 is not enforced in Moscow; for a long time,
the former Soviet citizens were obliged to pay an exorbitant fee of
0.1 minimum wage a day (about 250,000 rubles a month) under
Instruction #637*PM of the Government of Moscow of November 5, 1993
amended on May 16, 1996 (Instruction #303). In conformity with one of
the amendments, registration at the place of sojourn was valid for up
to 45 days and may not have been for longer than six months in one
calendar year. Under another amendment, staying in a place without
registration for over 24 hours was fined to the amount of one minimum
wage, and for over three days, a fine to the amount of two minimum
wages was to paid, or the transgressor was to be banished from Moscow
(the latter was never practiced due to the absence of relevant
mechanisms).
On July 9, 1997, the Moscow Duma passed the Law of the City of Moscow
*On the Terms of Sojourn in Moscow of the Citizens Entitled to the
Entry to Russia without a Visa*. Its main distinction from Instruction
#637 is that the new law replaced the daily fee for registration at
the place of sojourn by a lump-sum payment to the amount of three
minimum wages. The fee is collected only if the stay is to exceed 15
days. Although the length of registration was not to exceed six months
in one year, the Law does not demand re-registration every 45 days. We
see that the situation relating to registration could have improved.
But Instructions #637 and #303 remained in force for a long time, and
the police continued to obey them when registering the citizens of the
former Soviet Union who are not Russian citizens. What is more, there
were attempts to apply the Law and the Instructions #637 and #303
simultaneously. The Law also has faults as compared to the
instructions: it makes no exception for the disabled as regards
registration at the place of sojourn.
Only in late December 1997, a deputy's inquiry pertaining to the
simultaneous operation of several documents that contradicted each
other elicited an answer from the Mayor's Office of Moscow on drafting
an instruction that would cancel all acts usurping the competence of
the law which had already been in force for six months. In January
1988, they were abrogated, and information about this fact began to
make its slow way to the police; this process is not yet finished.
The Constitutional Court Resolution of February 2, 1998 recognized as
unconstitutional the restrictions on the duration of registration at
the place of sojourn and the floor space quotas imposed by the Rules
of Registration in the Russian Federation (RF Government Resolution
#713 of July 17, 1995), as well as all regional restrictions arising
from these Rules or the ones analogous to them. However, the Mayor of
Moscow Yuri Luzhkov declared for everyone to hear that he had no
intention of obeying this Constitutional Court decision. So nothing
has really changed in Moscow despite the public organizations'
vigorous efforts to refute the Moscow government's right not to comply
with the relevant RF laws in a court of law. Repeated applications to
the General Public Prosecutor's Office demanding that the Law of the
City of Moscow *On the Terms of Sojourn in Moscow of the Citizens
Entitled to the Entry to Russia without a Visa* for correspondence to
the RF Constitution and the other relevant Russian legislation were
finally successful in June 1998. The General Public Prosecutor's
Office recognized that the law did, indeed, contradict these
documents, and a presentation on abrogating a number of its provisions
was made to the Moscow City Duma.
Until recently, the procedure for according the status of refugee and
forced migrant in the City of Moscow was formulated by Instruction
#121 of March 14, 1996, which directly contradicts the law. According
to this instruction, the status in question was accorded only to the
forced migrants with close relatives in Moscow who agreed to share
housing with them. Only the refugees registered in Moscow at the place
of residence (that is, those who have housing in Moscow) could be
accorded the relevant status. Similar provisions operated in Moscow
Oblast. Having no status, refugees were obliged to comply with
Resolution #637 and were subjected to fines and extortion.
The *Civic Assistance* Committee repeatedly applied to the Public
Prosecutor's Office of the City of Moscow and the General Public
Prosecutor's Office requesting verification of the lawfulness of
Instruction #121. The latest application, supported by the State Duma
deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov was successful: on July 1, 1997, the General
Public Prosecutor's Office directed an application to the Moscow City
Court *on recognizing as unlawful the Instruction of the Mayor of
Moscow #121 of March 14, 1996 'On the Rules of According the Statuses
of Refugee and Forced Migrant in the City of Moscow' on the strength
of Article 41 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the RSFSR*. The court
hearing was postponed several times on the initiative of the Mayor's
representative, who requested that the Mayor's Office be given time to
bring the rules of according these statuses in Moscow in line with the
RF Laws. On December 25, 1997, the representative of the Mayor's
Office of Moscow recognized the legitimacy of the application of the
RF General Public Prosecutor's Office and submitted to court
Instruction 1000-PM of December 17, 1997, which canceled the old
procedure for considering the applications on according status and
obliged the Migration Service of Moscow to comply with the RF laws and
the sub-legal acts issued in Moscow. The Prosecutor's Office's
representative appealed for termination of the proceedings on this
case. But it took time for the interested public organizations to get
hold of the text of Instruction #1000. Back in February 1998, an
official of the Mayor's Office replied to the deputy's inquiry that
the dispatch of the text was being delayed for organizational reasons.
Only in April there appeared the first signs that the Moscow Migration
Service was beginning to work *in compliance with the RF laws*.
However, now the Muscovites who have agreed to take in a refugee or
forced migrant are obliged to present written guarantees that housing
would be provided for the entire term of validity of the status, that
is, three or five years respectively, and this does not fit any
international or Russian laws.
...........................
--
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe
Submissions: [email protected]
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected]
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================