BILL ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PROCEDURE FOR PURCHASING A PERSONAL STATUS WITHOUT CITIZENSHIP

 Each stage of the historical development of the state has its own characteristics and characteristics of the main components of the legal status of a person. A special component of this status is the totality of rights and freedoms enjoyed by a citizen and a stateless person in relation to the state. The issue of the legal status of an alien in the country is considered as the main component of the legal status in society.

 In Ukraine, the biggest drawback is the lack of a legislatively regulated mechanism of protection, including judicial, rights and legitimate interests of stateless persons, which would be guaranteed by the Constitution.

 According to statistics, in 2020 about 5135 stateless persons are registered with the migration authorities. For comparison: in 2001 there were up to 35,000 such people in Ukraine.

 On June 16, 2020, in the second reading, the Verkhovna Rada adopted on the whole bill № 2335, regarding amendments to some regulatory legal acts on the issue of acquiring the status of a stateless person. This bill has been submitted for consideration to establish a procedure for acquiring status. Previously, there were only categories of people who have the right to acquire this status:

• persons who live in Ukraine on the basis of invalid Soviet-style documents;
• persons who have lost the USSR passport and reside in Ukraine without valid documents;
• persons who came to Ukraine in infancy on a birth certificate and did not acquire the citizenship of their country of birth;
• persons who have lost citizenship and have not been on consular records (for example, Uzbekistan);
• representatives of the Roma nationality;
• persons who entered the territory of Ukraine illegally, and there is no mechanism for their forced return to their homeland due to the lack of documents.

 According to the law, a foreign citizen must legally stay in Ukraine, that is, within the framework of a visa or a period of stay in Ukraine for 90 days (depends on the country of citizenship: visa or non-visa regime for entering such a country with Ukraine) . Thanks to this bill, in relation to stateless persons, now not only the procedural procedure for acquiring the status of a stateless person has been established, but also the right and guarantee for legal residence in Ukraine. Among the additional rights are: the right to medical care and protection, the right to education and official work, the possibility of paperwork for crossing the border and returning back.

 This bill was a big step with the European concept. The practical application of the new rules of Bill № 2335 will begin after the formal adoption of a single regulatory act, which will regulate the entire procedure for acquiring the status of a stateless person, along with the procedure for submitting and considering an application for the acquisition of such status.