On the activity of the central-Russia and Moscow Centers on assistance to realization of forced migrants rights in 1998

The Prosecutor’s General Office confirmed the invalidity of the FMS refusals to file applications from foreigners seeking asylum. In accordance with Art. 13 of the law “On refugees” (in the edition of 28.06.97) asylum is granted “in the procedure envisaged by the RF government.” However the absence of such a procedure doesn’t deprive foreign citizens of the right to asylum. “Asylum seekers can make applications, which will be considered when the necessary provisions are made by the RF government,” the reply of S. Ya. Chayka, the Deputy Prosecutor General reads. The FMS made changes to its practice and started to file corresponding applications. In the opinion of the network members, a special registration certificate should be elaborated that will verify the right of asylum seeker to sojourn on the territory of Russia up to the moment when his application is considered on its merits.

The Moscow center has reported that the FMS required verification of Russian citizenship in the form of either a stamp, or a loose leaf in the passport from the applicants for the status of forced migrant, even if the applicants had been residing in Russia from their birth and had corresponding propiska. Mr. Kuznetsov, deputy head of the President’s Administration and of the Committee on citizenship, answers a petition from the network “that the USSR citizen passport bearing the stamp of propiska at the place of residence, verifying permanent residence in Russia on February 6, 1992, is a valid document verifying RF citizenship in accordance with the provision on citizenship issues enacted by the President’s decree.”

The network conducted extensive correspondence on the fact that refugees and forced migrants couldn’t get registered as unemployed with the employment service, that they couldn’t get welfare and re-training because they didn’t have registration at the place of sojourn. Everybody from the Ministry of Labor and Social Development to the FMS are sure that the law “On employment” is effective full-scale only provided that the citizen is registered at the place of residence. The network doesn’t agree with this attitude, since registration doesn’t affect legal status, and now we intend to file a few test cases. The network members are suggested to go to court with analogous cases in their regions.

It is necessary to stress the difference between the approach to the needs of migrants taken by the Ministry of Health and the one taken by the Ministry of Education (along with the Moscow Education Committee). Unlike the Ministry of Health, the Education Committee doesn’t stop thinking that only those children are entitled to study in Moscow whose parents are registered in the city. At the same time, a referral from the “Civic Contribution” Committee or a deputy is enough for a child to be admitted to school in each specific case. An inquiry to the prosecutor’s office was made, the prosecutor’s office agreed with the human right advocates and made a presentment of the case for the Education Committee to change the order of admission to schools. However the situation hasn’t improved so far. Moscow doesn’t answer to the measures of prosecutor’s control. As yet there is no reaction from the Moscow Duma to the presentment of the Prosecutor’s General Office on law #33 “On the order of registration in Moscow of foreign citizens who have the right to enter the RF without a visa.”

An expert report on the RF Government resolution #523 “On the order of issue and exchange of the RF asylum application consideration certificate” has been drawn out and an inquiry on it has been made to the prosecutor’s office. In accordance with the RF law “On refugees,” application is being considered for three months, and in case of necessity the term of consideration is prolonged to six months. However there also exists the term of appeal consideration. The asylum seeker should be given the legal right to stay on the territory of Russia while the negative decision of the FMS is being appealed against. However in this case the prosecutor’s office disagreed with the opinion of the network lawyers and replied that changes to legislation are needed, since the law makes no provisions for the asylum seeker is stay on the territory of Russia at the time of appeal consideration. The certificate can be prolonged by the court, but it isn’t a thorough measure. The issue should be taken into consideration in the course of work on amendments to the law “On refugees.”

But it takes the Duma a long time to consider amendments. For instance, the amendments to Art. 249 of the Civil Code addressing impossibility to verify the right of housing property in Chechnya have been travelling between different offices and officials already for a year, but for the fact that the issue is commonly agreed upon and crystal clear. The amendment to the law “On forced migrants” eliminating the term of application (following the pattern established by the law “On refugees”) had gone to the archives due to unknown reasons. So we’ve had to initiate the same procedure again.

As for the pending amendment to Art. 249, while it is pending, in case the courts refuse to consider applications for ownership verification of housing in Chechnya in the order of special proceeding, you are encouraged to approach N. Yu. Sergeeva, Deputy Chairperson of the Supreme Court, with the solicitation to indicate a suitable court for consideration of this application as it concerns signing away housing ownership rights. A visit to Chechnya is dangerous, courts of common jurisdiction do not function there. N. Yu. Sergeeva asks a local court to consider the application and the court never refuses. If it is necessary, your letter to the Supreme Court can be supported by the solicitation from a deputy.

Now let me say a few words on the extension of the network and preparation of the project proposal for its further development2.

I would like to express profound gratitude to the UN OHCR and ECRE in this connection. ECRE has been working with “Memorial” Human Rights Center on deployment of the network, ECRE’s Bill Siari is one of the project authors. Thanks to ECRE the network has been able to survive the banking crisis and the unprecedented robbery of SBS-Agro bank where the network had almost completely lost the TACIS program grant.

Bill Siari, ECRE’s project coordinator. I’d like to add to what has just been said by S. Gannushkina that ECRE can help the network only because it is supported by governments. And when ECRE shows some flexibility, it only means that the government sponsoring ECRE also shows the flexibility.

S. Gannushkina. The above primarily concerns the government of the Netherlands. It is not only helping the “Memorial” Human Rights Center out of the difficult financial situation. The Netherlands have granted asylum to the four refugee families from Azerbaijan at the solicitation from the UN OHCR and the “Memorial” Human Rights Center. It has been really great as the families were not secure on the territory of Russia because of the too close connections between law enforcement bodies of Azerbaijan and Russia, connections that are also too informal. The first family is the family of Ali Akram Gummatov, leader of Talysh people, who had been severely repressed and sentenced to death in his own country. The other three families are only guilty of being akin to the former Azerbaijani prime-minister Surat Gusseinov. Russian human rights advocates could only help by sending them to another country, and we are very grateful to the government of the country for understanding and prompt actions.

L. Naumova (Volgograd)

One of the problems that we have encountered is that some Chechnya residents went from the Republic to other regions temporarily (in order to get pensions, to evacuate children, etc.), they obtained the status of forced migrant there, but then they returned to Chechnya. They finally left the Republic only when the war began. They were refusing them compensation payment for lost housing and property on the grounds of resolution #510. We prepared and won a court trial on the verification of the fact of leaving Chechnya in the period of warfare in this connection back in 1997. The applicant was awarded compensation in 1998, she has already bought some housing. I visited Moscow in May 1998 and I was able to find out that our region was getting less money for compensation payment from the FMS than other regions were. Thanks to an inquiry from the deputy Igrunov made with the assistance from S.A. Gannushkina, we’ve managed to improve the situation with financing. This has raised our authority with the regional administration and regional Duma; we’ve even been given office space next to the regional migration service. Formally, we have normal relations with the migration service, though they don’t like us. They think that we get in their way. But they cannot ignore us anymore. We do our best to avoid direct confrontation with them, and we try to resolve all the conflicts privately, without going to court. Sometimes we succeed in it. For instance, the decision of the temporary committee on compensation payment was taken from one woman fraudulently. The woman came to us. I went with her to the officer who had done it and said, “You have committed a wrongful act.” The officer replied that the procedure was violated and the documents were not prepared correctly in this case. I asked whether the decision of the committee had been appealed against in court. It turned out that it hadn’t. Then I told her that it was us who were going to go to court and to put in a plea against her and that she would have to pay moral damage. So what? She went to the service director, came back with the decision and returned it. It appeared to be enough to explain that her actions were wrongful. In a number of cases such actions are made by migration service officers not because of wrong intention but because of ignorance.

S. Dubinina, O. Sozinov (Rostov-on-Don)

We have the same problem, refusal of compensation payment because of the departure date. I took part in three court trials on the verification of the fact of leaving Chechnya in the period of warfare. The migration service presents to the judge the opinion of its lawyer, which reads, “I ask you not to verify the fact that citizen X resided in the city of Grozny in the interests of Russian state.” This is how it reads! I understood then that our role in such trials was to explain to the judge why we needed the fact to be verified and what was the problem. When the judge caught it, a new feature developed in the case, and we won. But I’d like to add that the policy of the migration service is to ignore sentences of the sort. Such cases haven’t been even considered at the last two committee sessions, and the migration service head was saying to me in private something like “all the forced migrants are but rooks, and the judges gratify their actions.” Now we are preparing a complaint to the prosecutor of the region; I think that we’ll also have to talk to the legal department of the FMS.

I. Nekrasova (Yekaterinburg)

We have a disastrous situation with the granting of forced migrant status. Applications for the status are only filed if the applicant is registered at the place of residence on the territory of our region, so more than 80% of the applicants get refusals. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to appeal against the refusals in court. As of today we have a single positive case that has been realized: an applicant was given the status, and the person even got housing. However even though we have a test case, all the other decisions were negative. What is the reason why we have such a situation? They refuse us referring to Paragraph 1, Art. 1 of the law “On forced migrants,” asking an applicant to provide evidence that he had been persecuted. However it is practically impossible to provide such evidence (I think that those present here will agree with me). I have presented to the court the “Reports of the CIS member countries” where Kazakhstan itself (in this particular case Kazakhstan was in question) confirms that it has an intensive flow of emigrants belonging to national minorities, namely Russians, Ukrainians and Germans. But it did not help. I had been thinking so far that it was the official attitude of the FMS, but now I’ve understood it after the report of the St. Petersburg FMS representative that it is an initiative of our regional bodies. Perhaps the understanding will help us to fight.

Employment of forced migrants is a problem second in importance to our region. We have a lot of illegal work migrants, first of all these are Tadjiks, many people from other Asiatic republics come for seasonal employment. It is virtually impossible to protect the people, since the word is the only bond. However the problem of employment is also hot for those who have the status, but don’t have the registration. But for the fact that openings are present and that the employment service registers our wards, many employers turn down such people.

I’d like to say about another problem, too. It concerns the people who come on bilateral governmental agreements, in particular, with Latvia and Turkmenistan. Regretfully, the people have an absolutely wrong idea of the situation, and they just don’t understand the consequences of their decision to move to Russia, they think that they will be given some support. They think that a status of a migrant under an agreement and the status of forced migrant are equal. Probably, we have to get in touch with the consulates and to insist that people should be explained the difference so that they don’t indulge in illusions.

N. Yefremova (Penza)

We have been having the same situation in Penza for the last three months. As well as in Ekaterinburg, they deny the forced migrant status to the applicants systematically. I’ve looked through the statistics and found out that we had 17 thousand forced migrants on January 1, 1998, with only 14 thousand on October 1. What has resulted in such a decrease? On the one hand, the applicants are refused because they cannot provide written evidence of violence and threats. On the other hand, the re-registration for the status extension is under way, and they refuse to prolong it to virtually everybody. We win in court the cases of the second category quite often, because they are evident: the people have neither a place to live, nor permanent employment, their social problems are not resolved. However we loose the cases on the granting of the status, regretfully, we loose them as well as our colleagues in Ekaterinburg.

I. Fedotova (Saratov)

I’d like to dwell on a few issues related to compensation payment under resolution #510. As I work as a secretary of a temporary committee, I have to spend a lot of time on these matters. I am in an ambivalent situation; on the one hand, as a committee secretary I have to obey the provisions of the resolution, on the other hand, I’ve had cases when different data were submitted to the committee and to the court. Some times even the address is different. I know of a case when a woman who applied to the committee had no documents but a train ticket and the certificate stating that she had resided in Grozny at such and such address (it was issued in Mineralnyje Vody and the only grounds for its issue were the words of the woman). We had been working on her case for almost a year, finally she was paid the compensation for the lost property, but not for the housing. And then all of a sudden she brings us a court decision saying that she had owned a house in Grozny, the decision is based completely on the testimonies of witnesses (but I do know for sure that she had had no house). The woman is a single mother, she has two children. The committee has taken the decision of the court into consideration and she has been paid the compensation for housing, too. We consider the cases on which there is a court judgement, so far there were no refusals. However now we postpone consideration of doubtful cases and return them to the migration service so that they check everything one more time: why the facts are at such a variance? I enjoy it as a human rights advocate when we win, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable sometimes. I approached other organizations providing legal assistance to those who suffered in Chechnya to explain that the assistance shouldn’t be turned into support of the claims that have no grounds. I want to stress the open-minded attitude of the committee members to the cases under consideration. As a rule they make advances to applicants and don’t refuse outright, the applicant is given a chance to work with the documents, and the committee members assist him in it.

We have also managed to get some results in the employment respect, for instance, there is no problem in job placement of a person who has no registration. The person gets either a letter from a public organization, or a migration service solicitation, and the employment becomes possible. As for medical problems, we have good relations with the medics. They are always ready to help when we call or petition them. However there exist common problems with medical aid. Besides, the tuberculosis rate among migrants was 40 times higher than the average regional rate. Therefore preventive measures and annual tuberculosis diagnostics are needed, and they are especially important to the children. It is necessary to create medical teams, and this raises the problem of financing in the first place. Now we are trying to prepare our own medical project and find financing for it.