USMANOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT Russian citizenship in 2008. Such a finding was required for the annulment of the applicant’s Russian citizenship. 15. On 20 November 2017 the District Court allowed the application on the grounds that the omission was not disputed by the applicant. The court dismissed his arguments that the officer on duty had advised him not to list all of his relatives; that the missing information was not important; that he did not intend to mislead the authorities; and that he had strong ties with Russia. The first argument was found to be unsubstantiated by evidence and the others were considered to be irrelevant to the subject matter of the case. 16. The applicant challenged that decision by way of an appeal and cassation appeals before the Novgorod Regional Court (“the Regional Court”) and the Supreme Court of Russia. Those courts dismissed the appeals on 14 March, 1 June and 17 August 2018 respectively, endorsing the District Court’s reasoning. B. Annulment of the applicant’s Russian citizenship and passports 17. On 5 April 2018, referring to the finding of the domestic courts that the applicant had submitted false (incomplete) information about his relatives, the DMI annulled his Russian citizenship, his “internal passport” (a citizen’s identity document for use in Russia) and “travel passport” (a citizen’s identity document for use abroad). As a result, the applicant was left without any valid identity documents. C. Proceedings before the Constitutional Court 18. On an unspecified date in 2018 the applicant challenged the compatibility of section 22 of the Russian Citizenship Act (see paragraph 33 below) with the Russian Constitution. He claimed that it arbitrarily provided for the annulment of Russian citizenship without taking into account a person’s individual circumstances. The applicant further noted that Russian law did not stipulate any time-limit for the annulment of citizenship. 19. On 15 January 2019 the Constitutional Court refused to examine his complaint on the merits. It held that the application of the impugned section of the Russian Citizenship Act could only result in the automatic annulment of Russian citizenship if it had been established that a person did not meet the conditions required for obtaining citizenship. It also noted that the wording of the impugned section did not absolve the authorities from taking into account surrounding circumstances, such as the time elapsed since the decision granting Russian citizenship. According to the court, to hold otherwise would be contrary to the principles of the rule of law and justice or the requirements of necessary and proportionate interference with human rights. Lastly, the court mentioned that the decision to annul a person’s citizenship could be challenged in court and was thus subject to its scrutiny. 3