“Children of the Gulag” came to the wrong place – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

The Constitutional Court of Russia (CC) refused to consider the complaint of the victims of Soviet repressions about the slowness of the State Duma. Deputies have been dragging out for three years with the adoption of the “law on the right to return home” – “immediate” housing in the city where the families of the repressed lived at the time of arrest. Two bills on this topic remain without movement, although all applicants are very old and may not live to see the law passed. In rejecting the complaint, the Constitutional Court ignored its own demand to resolve the issue “immediately” and only stated that “the legislative process continues”.

The refusal to consider the complaint of the “children of the Gulag” against the deputies was formulated by the Constitutional Court in December last year, but the corresponding document was published only now. Recallthat the complaint was filed in November 2022 by 19 people who were born in the families of those who were repressed directly in exile or in a special settlement. Federal law gives them the right to free housing in the region where their parents lived before their arrest. However, regional acts, as Kommersant has repeatedly written, make it impossible to receive such compensation. In 2019, the Constitutional Court recognized that this was a violation of the rights of victims of repression, and ruled to “immediately” amend the federal law.

In 2020, the government drafted a bill that sends “gulag children” to the general queue for affordable housing. In it, older applicants (aged 65–90) would have to wait about 20 years. The bill managed to pass the first reading, but after widespread criticism was withdrawn from the second; as of February 2021, it remains motionless. The second project was developed by State Duma deputies Sergei Mironov and Galina Khovanskaya (SRZP): they proposed a “priority procedure” for obtaining housing for “Gulag children” – by analogy with veterans of the Great Patriotic War or the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident. This bill has also fallen into disrepair.

The State Duma has never discussed the problem with the repressed themselves, their lawyers say.

“Children of the Gulag” complained about the inaction of the State Duma to the Supreme Court, but it refused to consider the claim. Then the victims of repression challenged in the Constitutional Court the very law on the Constitutional Court, as well as the norms of the Code of Administrative Procedure and the regulations of the State Duma. They pointed out that all these norms “allow the State Duma to evade” work on changing laws.

The Constitutional Court did not consider the complaint, explaining on nine sheets why the refusal “is final and not subject to appeal.” The Constitutional Court refers to the refusal of the Supreme Court: even then “it was noted” that the adoption of laws is the prerogative of the State Duma, “and the courts have no right to interfere in its activities and impose any duties on it.”

However, the Constitutional Court agrees that its decisions are “binding” for execution “on the entire territory of the Russian Federation”, and points out that the mechanism provided for by law “obliges” the government to submit a draft law to the State Duma, and the State Duma to “consider” it and “make a decision on it”.

Thus, “the legislative process has been started and is currently ongoing,” the document says.

It should be noted that in November 2022, after the publication of Kommersant about the filing of a complaint by the “children of the Gulag” with the Constitutional Court, the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs held an emergency meeting on the issue of housing for the repressed. However, the project was not submitted to the plenary session of the State Duma.

The refusal of the Constitutional Court does not say anything about the “immediate” adoption of the amendments, on which the court insisted in 2019. In the complaint, the applicants separately drew the attention of the Constitutional Court to the ignorance of this paragraph by the legislators and hoped that the court would once again point out to the State Duma the urgency of the issue. Earlier, the chairman of the committee, deputy Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), in an interview with Kommersant, called the implementation of the decision of the Constitutional Court “non-urgent” – he believed that work on the bill would take six months. On Wednesday, Mr. Nilov explained to Kommersant that Galina Khovanskaya’s amendments were “not supported by all members of the committee.” According to him, the government bill “is ready for the second reading, it can be considered even tomorrow.” However, the document “caused a great discussion”, therefore the committee, according to Yaroslav Nilov, “continues to hold consultations on it.”

Until the law is changed, the issue of housing for the “children of the Gulag” should be resolved through “temporary regulation,” the Constitutional Court says in its refusal. This means that the “registration” of the repressed and rehabilitated who lost their housing should be carried out in a special (simplified) way. At the same time, the “children of the Gulag” pointed out in the complaint that this “temporary regulation” does not work: they are put on a housing register, but no one monitors the procedure for providing housing; the decision to allocate funds for it from the federal budget is not made; The COP cannot influence these processes.

The complaint emphasized: “Children of the Gulag” are placed on housing records “at the very end of the general queue”, where the waiting period is 15–20 years. Most old people simply do not have these years, lawyers pointed out.

“The Constitutional Court has signed its own impotence,” says lawyer Grigory Vaypan, who represents a group of applicants in courts. “For more than three years, the State Duma has not been executing the decision of the Constitutional Court, which the court demanded to be executed “immediately” and the non-execution of which he himself previously admitted in his annual reports. Now the Constitutional Court is completely satisfied with this situation.” Mr. Vaypan noted that his principals will continue to seek the implementation of the 2019 Constitutional Court resolution “both from the State Duma and from regional authorities, which must also change their laws.” Appropriate appeals are planned to be sent again to both the Constitutional Court and the government of the Russian Federation.

Maria Starikova