The President of Russia signed a law on restrictions on travel abroad for some categories of citizens, as well as clarifying the rules on recognizing Russian passports as invalid. The document was published on the website of legal information and involves seizure of travel passports from citizens called up for military service in the Russian Federation.
The law expands the grounds for recognizing a passport for travel abroad as invalid: its loss, termination of citizenship, unsuitability of the document, non-return at the end of a business trip, death, fact of the absence of a passport or its non-receipt, refusal to transfer a passport without a good reason by a citizen of the Russian Federation, whose right to leave Russia is limited on the grounds, provided by law, for storage in an authorized body or organization, issuance of a passport on a lost (stolen) form, and so on.
Now, according to the law, a citizen of the Russian Federation who is subject to conscription for military service and who has received a summons from the military commissariat must, within five working days after receiving the decision on restriction of exit from Russia, transfer a travel passport to the department that issued it — the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Multifunctional Public Services Center.
The document will be kept until the expiration of the travel restrictions or until the expiration of the passport.
In all cases of temporary restriction of the right to leave the country, the state authorities of the region, local governments or organizations that have decided to restrict the right of a citizen to leave, issue a notification to him/ her or their legal representative. The basis and duration of this restriction must be specified.
The initiative was submitted to the State Duma by the government of the Russian Federation on August 12, 2021. As the accompanying documents say, it will «eliminate legal uncertainty due to the absence at the legislative level of grounds for the invalidity of a passport, which will remove corruption risks and exclude the possibility of abuse by officials.»
