Russian Nationality Law - Compatriots Act of 1999

Compatriots Act of 1999

In 1999, in spite of the veto of the President, the Federal Assembly adopted the Act on the state policy on compatriots abroad. Article 11 stated that all former Soviet citizens and their descendants should be recognized as Russian citizens unless they had declared their intentions to be citizens of foreign states. However, this article was revoked in 2002 and persons under this article are not generally recognized by executive or court authorities of Russia as citizens of the Russian Federation unless they received documents of Russian citizenship before the article's revocation. No official comments have been given as to how this article should be interpreted. Oleg Kutafin, the chairman of the Presidential Committee on citizenship, criticized this Act in his book Russian Citizenship (ISBN 5-7975-0624-6), but the legal consequences of this Act were not analyzed there.