“This will give legislative protection to those who are extremely useful to the state.” Lawyer on admission to the civil service of Russians with dual citizenship

On August 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that allows Russians with other citizenship to enter government or municipal service. According to the decree, the impossibility of terminating foreign citizenship for a citizen of the Russian Federation will be determined by the decision of the President or the Commission on Citizenship under the President of Russia.

At the same time, the decree emphasizes that “civil servants who have citizenship of a foreign state, which has not been terminated for reasons beyond their control (…), are called upon to take all possible measures aimed at terminating” such citizenship, as well as refrain from obtaining documents, certifying the identity of a citizen of a foreign state, and committing other actions by them as a citizen of another country.

At the same time, even before the May holidays, Putin signed a number of laws that prohibit state and municipal employees, military personnel, law enforcement officers, governors and regional deputies from having dual citizenship or a residence permit of a foreign state.

In a conversation with The Insider, Konstantin Dobrynin, a senior partner of the Pen & Paper Bar Association, stressed that the original rule was adopted in a reactive mode and for political purposes, so lawmakers did not think about the details.

“As time passed, it became clear that clarifications were required due to the variety of personal circumstances of specific people and the uniqueness of the political landscape, because someone could not, cannot or for some reason will not leave another citizenship. Or some person with dual citizenship, extremely useful for Russia, will work for the Russian state in the near future. Such people should be legally protected, which is why such a change appeared.

In addition, indeed, there are countries whose citizenship cannot be renounced, or such an option is difficult. However, most of these restrictions are due to the fact that a person is a citizen of a certain country by birth. Most often this applies to small states. Panamanians by birth cannot lose or renounce their citizenship. However, naturalized Panamanians may lose their citizenship as a result of renouncing it, acquiring another citizenship, or serving another country. Tongan citizens also cannot renounce their citizenship. A similar approach applies to Argentine citizenship. In some countries (for example, in Guatemala), renunciation of citizenship is allowed only if this is a prerequisite for acquiring citizenship of another country.

In extremely rare cases, renunciation of citizenship is complicated by adverse financial consequences – as, for example, in the United States. In order to get out of American citizenship, you must pay the so-called exit tax (expatriation tax). It is calculated based on the amount that an individual would receive if he sold all his assets at market prices the day before renouncing citizenship. The calculation of the rate is quite complex, but in general it is done according to the rules applied to determine the income from the sale of assets, and the rate on long-term income (if the assets are owned for more than a year) is 23.8%. So there are many exotic geographic variants of why such a rule appears, but I tend to a simpler explanation, ”the lawyer explained.