Ban on dual citizenship for officials: the State Duma leaves loopholes
The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted today in the first reading two bills banning state and municipal employees, military personnel, as well as other officials from having foreign citizenship or a residence permit in another country, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
It is assumed that civil servants who have a second citizenship or residence permit in another country are required to inform management about this within 10 days from the date the law comes into force. They are allowed to continue working in their positions for six months. But only if, within 20 days from the date the law comes into force, they provide documents indicating their intention to terminate their second citizenship or residence permit, otherwise they will be fired. Officials will then be required to submit documents confirming the renunciation of the second citizenship shortly after receiving them.
Deputies of opposition factions considered the law not strict enough.
“We leave open the question of the possibility of having foreign citizenship for a spouse and for minor children. Think about what kind of nationalization of the elite this will be if children often study on the territory of another state, and the wife lives there?! The official actually lives in two houses. If an official has an estate in England or Spain, what kind of patriot is he after that? This is a potential foreign agent,” said communist Alexey Kurinny.
Zhirinovite Sergei Ivanov proposed extending restrictions also to large entrepreneurs and media employees.
“If you look at the list of our 10 richest billionaires who own both media and strategic raw materials, they all have dual citizenship or non-tax residents of the country. This is a huge threat to national security. This bill does not include media workers who have relatives abroad, who could cause any kind of sabotage for us here. How many employees of medical organizations have come to us now?” - said Ivanov.
United Russia deputy Adalbi Shkhagoshev drew the attention of his colleagues that the need to track officials with dual citizenship in Russia arose not so long ago.
“It’s very easy to talk when order has already been restored in the country. Why were our citizens recruited abroad if they were present here? Since the conclusion of the treaty with the United States in 1992 on nuclear facilities, they have been inspected 630 times. The treaty, concluded in 1993, gave inspectors the right at any time to visit any nuclear facility where the most secret nuclear weapons were located. This lasted 10 years,” recalled Shkhagoshev.
Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin emphasized that after a thorough check, no State Duma deputies with dual citizenship were found.
“Today we have no data that deputies have a second citizenship. If you have materials, please give them,” Volodin said.
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