The Supreme Court dismissed the claim of the "children of the GULAG" to the State Duma on the allocation of housing

As reported by "Novaya Gazeta", information about this is placed in the file of the court.

In their appeal to the Armed Forces, more than 20 "children of the GULAG" demanded that the State Duma comply with the 1991 law and the 2019 Constitutional Court ruling. They contain guarantees that the children of victims of political repression have the right to receive housing at the former place of residence of their families at the expense of the federal budget.

"In any case, the defense will appeal against the decision in all instances", - the message says.

The authors of the lawsuit hope that the State Duma will return to considering the issue of providing housing for children of repressed citizens.

Lawyer Grigory Vaipan, representing the interests of victims of children of Stalinist terror in the Supreme Court, said that in the history of the Russian Federation this is the first collective statement of claim on non-execution of the decision of the Constitutional Court. He said: every effort will be made to ensure that the children of the Gulag receive compensation by any available legal means. The decision of the Constitutional Court has been implemented for almost two years, although it applies not only to 23 people who filed a lawsuit, but to a much larger number of citizens: about 1,500.

The lawyer emphasized: despite the much larger number of victims of Stalinist repressions, the law allows only the children of repressed people, and not their grandchildren, to claim compensation from the state, and only if they were born in camps or exile.

The families of the repressed participants in the class action lawsuit were sent to camps from Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Oryol and Rostov regions, from the Crimea, from the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions. It is to these places that they would like to return. Under class action law, applicants in a group of more than 20 can speak on behalf of anyone who has a similar problem.

Difficulties with returning to their historical homeland for victims of political repression in Russia are that the implementation of the law "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression", adopted in 1991, is selective.

The fact is that in 2004 the federal center allowed the regions to establish additional restrictions on the provision of housing to the families of victims of political repression. In order to obtain a legal apartment in Moscow, rehabilitated political prisoners have to languish in a common queue, which moves extremely slowly. The waiting time for an apartment in it is about 25 years.

In 2019, following the lawsuit of three pensioners whose parents went through Stalin's camps, the Russian Constitutional Court demanded that the necessary changes be made to the legislation that would allow victims of repression to receive housing in those regions where they can claim to live by birthright.

However, contrary to the decision of the Constitutional Court, in 2020 the State Duma deputies decided to maintain regional restrictions on the provision of housing. This means that children born in the Gulag will not be able to freely return to the homeland of their ancestors. In their native regions, the authorities will have the right to place them not in a special, but in a general queue.

In a number of subjects, the speed of its movement is such that human life is not enough to get the housing required by law. A resident of Kostroma, for example, was promised to provide housing in 595 years.

Representatives of the "Fair Russia" party proposed to allow "children of the GULAG" to receive housing at the expense of the federal authorities for a year. However, the State Duma rejected such an initiative.