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7 E. Eur. Const. Rev. 52 (1998)
The Propiska and the Constitutional Court

handle is hein.journals/eeurcr7 and id is 152 raw text is: Freedom of movemnt In the Rusn Federation today The Propiska and the Constitutional Court Konstantin Katanian nder the communist regime, freedom of movement was monitored and curbed by means of the propiska-a required residence permit that restricted an individual's right to choose his place of residence and to travel within the country. Inaugurated by Stalin on the model of a well- established czarist practice of restricting freedom of movement, the propiska system became increasingly entrenched over the course of the communist era. The complaints of human-rights activists about the system went unheard for many years, except in the West. Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika encouraged discussion of the public's rights and liberties, includ- ing the freedom of movement that the propiska kept rigidly in check. Activists protested that the propiska violated the constitutional right to travel freely and to choose one's place of residence. In the period between 1990 and 1991, the USSR Committee on Constitutional Oversight (Komitet Konstitutsionnogo Nadzora SSSR), headed by Sergei Alekseev, recom- mended the system's overhaul and liberalization. The committee concluded that all citizens of the Soviet Union should be free to choose their place of residence, being obliged to inform state officials only of their choices, nothing more. From the outset, however, the committee was hamstrung. It lacked resources, its resolutions were nonbinding, and with the USSR's collapse, its writ expired before it accomplished much. The Russian Federation Parliament, moreover, failed to set up a similar successor committee on con- stitutional oversight. Instead, inJuly 1991, Parliament ratified the Law on the Constitutional Court. By October, the newly appointed justices of the Constitutional Court had begun their work, and, by January of 1992, the Court began to examine cases touching on the constitutional protection of citizens' basic rights. But several years passed before the issue of the propiska, which stayed on the books in demo- cratic Russia, came before the Constitutional Court. Finally, on April 18, 1995, the Court heard a case brought by Lyudmila Sitalova. Sitalova claimed that the RSFSR Housing Code violated Art. 40.1 of the Constitution, which reads: Everyone shall have the right to a home. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of a home. Her case did not directly involve the ordi- nances covered by the propiska law, because the Court found that they were not subject to adjudica- tion; but the Court did note that the USSR Committee on Constitutional Oversight had already found the ordinances covered by the propiska statutes unconstitutional and nonbinding. What Sitalova's case did challenge was the constitutionality of Arts. 54.1 and 54.2 of the Housing Code, which maintain that a tenant has the right to host guests in his rented space in the pre- scribed manner. The oblast court had interpreted this phrase to mean that tenants and guests must comply with the propiska regulations. Sitalova's counsel argued that the oblast court's interpretation of Arts. 54.1 and 54.2 of the Housing Code was mistaken, and that this judicial interpretation ran counter to Art. 40.1 of the Constitution. The facts were these. Sitalova had lived in V N. Kaderkin's apartment for five years, in a relationship that resembled a common-law marriage. But throughout this period she remained registered as a resident of her daughter's home. After Kaderkin's par- ents died, Sitalova tried to register herself as a resident of Kaderkin's apartment, but her application was refused. The regional court then ruled in Sitalova's 52 EAST EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW

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