SETTING UP A NETWORK
OF LEGAL ASSISTANCE
FOR REFUGEES
AND FORCED MIGRANTS
IN RUSSIA
About «Setting Up a Network of Legal Assistance
for Refugees and Forced
Migrants in Russia»,
a program implemented by the «Memorial» Human Rights
Centre and financed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR)
The problem of refugees and migration not decreed by government is new
for Russia. There are but very few lawyers sufficiently versed in this
particular aspect of either international or federal legislation. Government
officials are equally inexpert in the precepts of international law and
the latest national legislation. Some federal regulations contradict certain
stipulations of the international law, as well as this country’s Constitution
and laws. Meanwhile the 89 entities of the Russian federation, i.e. republics,
areas, regions, and above all Moscow and St. Petersburg are busy drawing
up their own migrants’ rights and related legislation. It is done regardless
of its inconsistency with the federal laws and the Constitution, and basically
serves to curb an individual’s chances of getting the status of a refugee
or forced migrant and the registration at the place where he settles.
Given no access to legal information and legal support the migrants are
at the mercy of the local bureaucrats and their instructions, which often
contravene even the locally issued rules and regulations. So obviously
the refugees and forced migrants must be helped, if their problems are
to be solved in compliance with the Russian legislation.
The Program aims at:
-
educating the Russian society in the legal approach to the problems of
refugees and forced migration,
-
supplying refugees, forced migrants and any person interested in the problem
of migration with information on the existing legal basis and process of
law in this sphere,
-
providing, on a permanent basis, legal assistance to refugees and forced
migrants striving for their rights,
-
l establishing contacts between refugees and migrants, settled both individually
and in groups, to resolve common problems related to their legal status
in Russia,
-
educating lawyers and human rights workers with refugee rights as their
major.
The Program undertakes to:
-
set up a network of legal advice offices and stations and a compact center
in Moscow to provide legal assistance to communities of refugees and migrants,
forced migrants and refugees from the former Soviet republics, and refugees
from third countries,
-
provide computer network service for the legal advice offices throughout
Russia, render urgent assistance whenever a glaring violation of law and
human rights in regard to the refugees is the case,
-
establish a database of legislative acts accessible to each and every regional
office,
-
provide expert analysis of regulations on forced migration, with a view
to establishing their consistence with the international legal acts, the
Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation, and identifying the existing
lacunas in the corresponding legislation,
-
expose the flaws in the process of law relating to the migrants’ rights,
isolate typical conflict situations and work out approaches to dealing
with them,
-
organize seminars to discuss the tasks of the Program, ways of implementing
it, and international and Russian achievements in resolving migration problems,
-
elaborating effective instruments of defending the rights of the migrants
in Russia.
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