The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recalled the rules for granting citizenship

© Timur Khanov/PG

If a person voluntarily obtained the citizenship of another state, then he does not have the right to obtain Russian citizenship on the basis of being in the country on February 6, 1992. This decision was made by the Supreme Court (SC) of the Russian Federation upon consideration of the case.

How did you figure it out on the portal?Pravo.ru”, in accordance with the law on citizenship adopted at the end of 1991, if a person was in the country on February 6, 1992, then he has the right to receive Russian citizenship.

Based on this provision, a man who was born in Kazakhstan and had the citizenship of this country applied to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs with an application for a Russian passport, confirming the fact of being in the country during the specified period. At the same time, the department refused the man, justifying it by the fact that he is not a citizen of Russia. In this regard, he applied to the court of first instance, which refused him, since in a letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan dated 1994, he was listed as a citizen of this country.

The court explained that in the case of obtaining another citizenship, the fact that a person was on the territory of Russia on February 6, 1992 does not matter in the issue of determining citizenship. The second instance also agreed with the conclusions of the court. However, the plaintiff wrote a complaint to the court of cassation, which overturned the decision of the lower instances and ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to re-examine the application for issuing a passport to him. In this case, the third instance considered the existence of a certificate from the Consulate General, which states that the man does not have Kazakh citizenship, to be sufficient grounds.

Then the Interior Ministry appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. It was decided there that since the fact that in 1994 the man was a citizen of Kazakhstan has been proven, it means that he does not have the right to a Russian passport according to the norm to which he referred. Thus, the Supreme Court annulled the decision of the cassation and upheld the decisions of the lower instances.

Earlier, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that in 2022, 691,000 foreigners received Russian citizenship, which is 44,000 less than in 2021. At the same time, the number of facts of migration registration of foreigners amounted to 16,870,094, in the same period of 2021 this number was 13,392,897.