Such a category of residents of the state as a “stateless person” today constitutes a rather wide circle of people who, on the one hand, cannot enjoy all the rights of ordinary citizens, and on the other hand, must obey the current legislation. At the same time, they retain all human rights, but the privileges of a citizen are significantly curtailed.

From the standpoint of jurisprudence, we can say that stateless persons are residents of a country who do not have citizenship of any of the states known on the world map. At the same time, absolutely any person can fall into the category of so-called stateless persons on a voluntary basis or due to some insurmountable circumstances.

Possible reasons

It would be useful to know what could be the reason that a newborn inhabitant of the planet will not receive civil status or will lose it at a more conscious age:

• a stateless person is called so when he is born from stateless parents, if at the same time the law of the soil does not apply in the country of his birth, and he does not automatically become its citizen. This case occurs most often;
• in case of voluntary renunciation of citizenship to any state. When the procedure for renunciation of citizenship is completed, the applicant is required to surrender his passport, which immediately classifies him as stateless. Usually people stay in this position for a short period of time, and therefore they can be considered temporary stateless, since after leaving one citizenship they immediately seek to enter another. More about changing citizenship;
• Another way to become stateless is to lose it. Most often, the reason for this is the desire of the state to protect its inhabitants from a dangerous individual, whose presence in society can pose a threat to life and health. The usual consequence of such a decision is expulsion from the country. Read more about expulsion;
• as a result of revealing the fact of fictitiousness of the main legal procedures. A striking example is a fictitious marriage. In this case, the violator is not only deprived of his civil status, but also of all the privileges that he bestows;
• a fairly well-known way is how to obtain the status of a stateless person due to the disappearance of the state from the political map of the world. As an illustrative example, one can cite the collapse of the Soviet Union into several independent states, each of which provided residents of their regions with the opportunity to go through the procedure for entering a new citizenship automatically, according to a simplified scheme. But even today there are still people who have not changed their Soviet passport for a certificate of a citizen of one of the former republics. And since the country that issued them the Soviet-style document no longer exists, they can rightfully be considered stateless.

At the same time, the international convention states that refugees cannot be included in the category of “stateless people”.

What rights can stateless persons enjoy?

Despite the lack of a clear civil status, most countries still do not try to deprive such residents of the basic rights that citizens of the state can enjoy. A few restrictions include:

• inability to participate in elections;
• hold important positions in state structures;
• to serve in the military.

As for the positions held, this list is actually not limited to only bureaucratic positions. Stateless persons cannot become pilots of aircraft or captains of ships. As for their universal human rights, in this respect they do not experience any discrimination from the side of the law. For example, they can equally receive education, use medical services or realize their professional potential in the specialty they have received.

According to the laws of the Russian Federation

Speaking specifically about the Russian Federation, in our country the rights of stateless persons are limited by the inability to participate in political associations and parties. In addition, they cannot hold positions that involve keeping secrets. By special order, the authorities may at any time impose restrictions on their internal movements.

On the other hand, a stateless person can safely travel beyond the Russian border, but only for a strictly limited period of time. Moreover, when applying for a job in some rare specialty, a stateless person will be given preference over an ordinary citizen if the latter does not have the necessary diploma and stock of knowledge.

At the same time, the Russian state is distinguished by its special loyalty to residents with this status, which cannot be said about other countries. What does a stateless person mean, for example, in the USA? This is not a fully-fledged member of society with rather curtailed rights.

It should be noted that the procedure for expanding their rights by stateless persons is complicated by bureaucratic formalities and the imperfection of laws. So, in order to obtain the status of a temporary resident of the country, it is necessary to present a migration card, which stateless people do not have. For its part, this makes it impossible to obtain a residence permit and move on to further stages of legalization. Kind of a vicious circle.

Thus, in many respects, the position of these residents of the country resembles the status of foreigners who are also not endowed with Russian citizenship.

What can confirm the identity of a stateless person

As a rule, a person who does not have any citizenship does not have the usual documents for other citizens - a passport and a certificate issued at birth. It is quite logical to assume that there must be some other papers that can still verify the identity of the bearer. These include:

• a document that is an identity card, but was issued in another country;
• permission to temporarily stay in this state;
• resident card;
• any other document that has received official recognition on the territory of the Russian state. For example, certificate d'apatrid.

It is obligatory for a stateless person to have a document that could confirm his identity.

An exhaustive description of the rights and obligations of stateless persons can be found in Article 109 of the Law on Migration Registration.

How to get a Russian passport for a stateless person

The path of legalization of stateless persons in the Russian Federation is not easy and is particularly long. In order to replace a stateless person's passport with a Russian one, it is necessary to meet a number of requirements:

• have a source of legal income;
• not be judged;
• live in the Russian Federation for several years legally.

Having found out the name of a person without citizenship or citizenship, let's move on to the question of how the process of his naturalization in Russian society will look like.

The process can be divided into several stages:

• migration registration;
• registration;
• getting a passport.

The legalization procedure is carried out in the general order - through the offices of the migration service. Before proceeding to any of the above steps, the service staff will certainly verify the identity of the applicant. In particular, whether he was expelled from the country.

Separate consideration requires obtaining the status of a stateless person by residents of Crimea who intend to change their Ukrainian passport to a Russian one. According to a special order, all persons who lived on the peninsula at the time of recognition of Crimea as Russian territory could automatically obtain Russian citizenship. Today, citizens of Ukraine, including stateless persons, must confirm the presence of a residence permit in the Crimean territory and go through the standard legalization procedure, albeit in a simplified manner, bypassing the stage of permanent residence.