Kazakh citizen to receive compensation for 3 years without citizenship

Tengrinews.kz - A resident of Taraz spent three years trying to prove his Kazakh citizenship, according to the press service of the Supreme Court.
In September 2019, the man was denied re-registration and replacement of his identity card by the Public Service Center (PSC). The PSC cited a record in the Ministry of Internal Affairs' database stating he had lost his Kazakh citizenship "due to acquiring Russian citizenship."

"Since 2019, he repeatedly appealed to the police, stating that he had not acquired Russian citizenship. As a result, the plaintiff could not prove for three years that he was a citizen of Kazakhstan," the court reported.

In May 2023, during an investigation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation found that the plaintiff had not applied for Russian citizenship, and there were no records of his citizenship in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs' databases. Based on this conclusion and the results of an internal investigation, the police department annulled the status of the plaintiff's identity card as invalid.

"A lawsuit has been filed with the Taraz city court against the police department seeking 3 million tenge in compensation for moral damages. The defendant's representative did not acknowledge the claim, stating that the plaintiff's loss of citizenship was registered by the Russian Federal Migration Service. It was also noted that the plaintiff did not contact the police in 2019-2020 regarding the destruction of administrative buildings in January 2022. The defendant's fault in the loss of citizenship was not established," the statement reads.

The court found that the defendant had delayed reviewing the plaintiff's appeals, and police officers failed to take the necessary measures to restore his constitutional rights for over three years. This led to the plaintiff being without legal status for an extended period, causing him emotional distress.
As a result, the court partially upheld the plaintiff's demands and ordered the police department to pay 300,000 tenge as compensation for moral damages.
The decision has come into force.
A recent case of a citizen of Kazakhstan suspected of inciting religious hatred has been extradited from Russia.