Recall that under current legislation, the benefit granted to residents of CIS and Baltic countries who previously held a Soviet passport is valid until January 1, 2008. However, the simplified procedure does not apply to all former Soviet citizens: to obtain a Russian passport, one must be registered at their place of residence in the Russian Federation as of July 1, 2002 (the date the law was adopted), or obtain a temporary residence permit or a residence permit in Russia.
The 'preferential' procedure is indeed somewhat simpler – it is enough to write an application to the local office of the Federal Migration Service, provide a photocopy of a passport, a photograph, and pay a state fee. For comparison: the general procedure requires that first one must obtain a temporary residence permit, after a year submit an application for a residence permit, then pass a Russian language exam, and only after that obtain the right to citizenship in the Russian Federation.
Presenting the amendments, their author – member of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs and relations with compatriots Konstantin Zatulin emphasized that the deadline set by the law is clearly insufficient. Recall that initially the simplified procedure was valid only until January 1, 2006, and only later did the Duma extend it for another two years. During this time, it is extremely difficult to obtain a residence permit within the established period, noted Deputy Zatulin. Moreover, a certain share of the blame lies with the legislators themselves. 'Instead of defining accelerated procedures for obtaining a residence permit (necessary for acquiring citizenship) back in 2002, we introduced these norms only on January 15, 2007,' Zatulin admitted in an interview with a correspondent of 'Vremya Novostey.'
As a result, the deputy notes, today several tens of thousands of people have not managed to go through all the bureaucratic stages. Often even those who hold a Russian passport have to 'prove that they are not a camel,' because from the point of view of the current rules, the procedure for acquiring citizenship was carried out with violations. The Russian citizenship legislation itself, according to Zatulin, resembled a swing – the norms either became overly liberal or stricter. 'In the 1990s, the rules were liberal, and those who had little basis for obtaining citizenship managed to grab it,' the parliamentarian remarked. 'Those who did not have large capital or extensive connections – mainly the Russian population – are still trudging through agencies, trying to prove that they indeed have the right to citizenship.'
'One can only welcome that the new version of the law maintains the status quo,' noted the chair of the committee 'Civil Assistance,' member of the presidential human rights council Svetlana Gannushkina. 'But the amendments only extend the simplified procedure, whereas in our opinion, this procedure should be made indefinite.' Furthermore, according to the human rights activist, the legislator should abandon the requirement of mandatory registration of the future Russian citizen at their place of residence, changing it to 'permanent residence.'
'I personally advocate for lifting the time restrictions,' stated Konstantin Zatulin. 'The amendments I introduced to the law 'On Citizenship of the Russian Federation' initially precisely provided for lifting the restrictions that existed in Part 4 of Article 14 of this law.' However, according to the deputy, the bill encountered 'not entirely correct attitude to this issue' from the Federal Migration Service. 'It seems that the migration service and other supervising agencies believe that maintaining the possibility of simplified citizenship acquisition thus discourages compatriots from participating in the voluntary resettlement program for which the FMS is responsible,' suggested Zatulin. According to him, due to this opposition and because 'there will be no further opportunities for a decision' (last week the penultimate session of the current Duma took place), the bill's authors had to compromise and agree to limit the validity of the benefits to January 1, 2009.