The Orel administration refused to comply with the court decision to register the son of a repressed city woman on housing registration

The Orel administration refused to comply with the court decision to register Yuri Shirokov, the son of a repressed city resident, as a housing registry. Previously, the Constitutional Court indicated that all “children of the Gulag” should be registered for housing in their native places “without any conditions”; the court in Orel supported this position. However, city officials said that Mr. Shirokov, who was born in exile, must be registered in Orel and live there. Lawyer Grigory Vaypan, representing the interests of the “children of the Gulag,” points out that the issue of housing for repressed people should be resolved at the federal level, but the State Duma has been avoiding adopting the necessary amendments for almost five years. Deputy Yaroslav Nilov said that work on the amendments, despite all the difficulties, continues. The head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Valery Fadeev, told Kommersant that the problem is due solely to a “pragmatic financial issue.”

In July 2022, a resident of Volgodonsk, Yuri Shirokov, asked the Orel administration to register him and his wife as those in need of residential premises. Mr. Shirokov indicated that he was rehabilitated – he was born in exile in Kazakhstan, where his mother, who was twice repressed in the 1940s and 1950s, served her sentence. Before her arrest, she lived in Orel. In 1992, the woman and son were rehabilitated; According to the law “On Victims of Political Repression,” they have the right to housing in the city where the family lived at the time of arrest.

In September 2022, officials refused Mr. Shirokov – “due to the lack of registration at the place of residence in the city of Orel.” Then he appealed to the Sovetsky District Court of Orel and demanded that it be recognized that the mayor’s decision was illegal and “violated the plaintiffs’ right to be provided with living quarters at their previous place of residence.” In July of this year, Mr. Shirokov’s claim was satisfied in the part that does not concern his wife. The judge ordered officials to register the man “as a person in need of residential premises under the category of rehabilitated persons in connection with repression.”

However, the Orel administration refused to comply with the court’s decision. In an official letter (a scan of the document is at Kommersant’s disposal), officials said that they would re-consider the issue of registering him for housing “if he returns to live in the city of Orel.” “In 2019, the Constitutional Court declared this requirement unconstitutional,” recalled lawyer Grigory Vaypan, representing the interests of Yuri Shirokov and other rehabilitated people, in an interview with Kommersant. “The Constitutional Court directly stated that all “children of the Gulag” should be accepted for housing registration without any restrictions. or conditions. Since then, in some regions, in particular in Moscow, the authorities do not argue and put the “children of the Gulag” on the register. In other regions we have to achieve this through the courts, but everywhere we win sooner or later.” The lawyer called the situation in Orel “out of the ordinary,” since officials are considering his client’s application “according to the general norms of local legislation, and not according to the category of those rehabilitated.” “We will receive a writ of execution and will enforce it through the bailiffs. In addition, we will apply to the court to impose a court fine on officials who do not comply with the court decision,” said Mr. Vaypan. Kommersant was unable to obtain a comment from the Orel administration.

Grigory Vaipan believes that such “arbitrariness on the ground” is caused by the lack of a federal law regulating the procedure for providing housing to victims of Soviet repression. “Back in 2019, the Constitutional Court ordered the State Duma to amend the law on rehabilitation and provide for a uniform procedure for the entire country for providing “children of the Gulag” with housing. This law has not yet been adopted,” the lawyer emphasized.

As Kommersant previously wrote, in 2020 the government submitted its own version of the “housing” bill to the State Duma. However, human rights activists pointed out that it is, in fact, a formality: officials proposed putting repressed people on a general queue for housing, which in some regions takes several decades of waiting. After criticism, the initiative was mothballed without reaching consideration in the second reading.

“The situation is difficult. On the one hand, there is a decision of the Constitutional Court, which does not talk about changing the powers of the subjects. That is, in order to transfer these powers to the federal level, it is necessary to make changes to another law. The second is a question related to financing,” Yaroslav Nilov, head of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, commented on the situation with the amendments to Kommersant. “The text of the amendments prepared as part of the decision of the Constitutional Court does not suit either public organizations, lawyers, or members of the Council. federation and deputies. Therefore, work on the text continues, we are trying to find a compromise option.” However, the deputy emphasized that, despite the difficulties in working with changing existing legislation, victims of repression can get housing now: “Despite the fact that this is not defined by law, the decision of the Constitutional Court that has entered into legal force is already in effect. These apartments are already being issued as part of the general queue. That is, regardless of the law, this norm is already working.”

It should be noted that in July in Krasnodar a court decision came into force to pay compensation to the Panaetidi family of Greeks, who were repressed during Soviet times. “Children of the Gulag” will receive money from the state to purchase housing in the Seversky district of the Krasnodar Territory, from where their parents were expelled during the deportation of Greeks in 1942. Previously, Panaetidi was placed on a waiting list to receive subsidized housing, but it turned out that she was practically not moving. Therefore, they had to go to court again to obtain monetary compensation from the regional budget.

The head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Valery Fadeev, believes that the issue of amendments lies in the economic plane. “This problem was discussed with the president two years ago (in 2021, more than 100 public and cultural figures appealed to the Russian leadership on the issue of housing for those repressed.— “Kommersant”). Legislators support the idea of ​​​​providing housing to the actual victims – there are very few of them left, and this is not an issue for regional budgets. But when we talk about their children, we are talking about a lot of money – you will have to push aside other people standing in line. There is no such policy that we will under no circumstances give the children of repressed people housing. This is a pragmatic financial issue,” concluded Mr. Fadeev.

Emilia Gabdullina; Sergey Tolmachev, Voronezh