Tatarstan to determine procedure for providing housing for victims of political repression

The prosecutor of Tatarstan, Ildus Nafikov, submitted to the State Council of the Republic a draft amendment to the regional law “On targeted social support for the population.” The document is supposed to establish the obligation of the authorities to provide housing to the victims of political repression, who decided to return to their former place of residence in the region. This includes family members of the rehabilitated and applies to foreigners and citizens of the Russian Federation who do not live in Tatarstan.

In the explanatory note, the prosecutor explains that he introduced the bill in order to implement the provisions of Art. 13 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression”. It was adopted back in 1991. And in 2004, a rule appeared in it that “in case of returning to their former place of residence, rehabilitated persons and members of their families are registered and provided with living quarters in the manner prescribed by the legislation of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.”

The regions have begun to establish mechanisms for such compensation. However, many of them set often impossible conditions. In December 2019, the Constitutional Court decided amend the federal law on victims of repression. In addition, the regions were instructed to amend their regulations.

As pointed out by the prosecutor of Tatarstan, there is currently no procedure for registering citizens who need housing, having lost it due to repressions. Such an algorithm, according to the bill, will now have to determine the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic. At the same time, the prosecutor found it difficult to “estimate the amount of funds needed to implement the bill.”

Kirill Antonov, Kazan