Legislation in question: Article 12 of the Federal Law “On the Citizenship of the Russian Federation”, Article 13 and 18 of the Federal Law “On the Citizenship of the Russian Federation”
Legal issue: Constitutionality of regulations making the acquiring of the Russian citizenship by birth dependent upon the procedure – either recognition or registration - which the parents of the person in question have chosen in order to claim their Russian citizenship.
Ratio decidendi: In Constitutional Court’s practice persons holding the citizenship of the USSR and entitled to the Russian citizenship by birth, as well as their children, inheriting such right based on the principle “jus sanguinis”, cannot loose it by any means other than their own free will, and there cannot be any decisive weight given to the method the parents have chosen to claim their Russian Federation’s citizenship in order to determine whether their children hold the citizenship of the Russian Federation by birth. However, given a lengthy period during which there exists a possibility to claim the Russian Federation citizenship by the persons who held the citizenship of the former USSR, and the fact that the legislature had established a simplified procedure for claiming the citizenship by the type of persons of the petitioner’s kind, the regulations in question cannot be considered infringing on the his constitutional rights.
