During the 9 years of occupation in the temporarily occupied Crimea, children were born, people died, marriages were concluded and broken, that is, so-called “acts of civil status” took place, which must be registered according to the laws of Ukraine.
The experts of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center understand very clearly the complexity of issues related to the state registration of acts of civil status, because they have systematically dealt with these issues since the occupation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
This issue was considered by experts at the beginning of March 2023 during the Strategic Forum “The Future of Crimea” and was reflected in the recommendations of the forum, which the CTRC has already submitted to the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, the diplomatic corps of Ukraine, the Ministry of Reintegration and will soon submit to the Representation of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea .
At the same time, the experts of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center continue to refine problematic issues at various sites related to the simplification of the procedure for registering acts of civil status in the temporarily occupied territories.
As part of the work of the Coordinating Headquarters for the return of citizens of Ukraine to the controlled territory from the temporarily occupied territories through third countries, on May 15, lawyer of the CTRC Volodymyr Liashenko took part in an online discussion of government bill No. 9069. The bill provides for amendments to the current legislation on the introduction of an administrative registration procedure acts of civil status that occurred in the temporarily occupied territory.
The discussion was attended by deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – members of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy, representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Reintegration, law enforcement agencies and human rights public organizations.
During the discussion of the concept of the bill, Volodymyr Liashenko noted that the delay in the adoption of amendments to the current legislation to simplify the procedure for state registration under the laws of Ukraine of acts of civil status that took place with citizens of Ukraine on the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean peninsula for more than 9 years of occupation could lead to the fact that at the time of the deoccupation of Crimea, Ukraine will not have a proven algorithm for solving hundreds of thousands of issues that will simultaneously arise from the moment the Ukrainian authorities return to the de-occupied territories. This could have fatal consequences for the international image of Ukraine and lead to significant strain on relations with the local population, which survived the difficult years of Russian occupation.
Based on the results of the discussion, the participants decided that in order to refine the problematic issues in detail, it is necessary to create a narrow-profile working group with the participation of specialists with practical experience in the field of establishing legal facts and state registration of acts of civil status that took place in the temporarily occupied territory. A representative of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center plans to join such a working group.