12 ALPEYEVA AND DZHALAGONIYA v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 76. The Ombudsman further criticised Supreme Court decision no. KAS 06-300, which took the view that a passport merely attested to Russian citizenship, and that its seizure had no bearing on constitutional rights. He believed this approach contradicted the Court’s findings in Smirnova v. Russia (nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, § 97, ECHR 2003-IX (extracts)) to the effect that “in their everyday life Russian citizens have to prove their identity unusually often, even when performing such mundane tasks as exchanging currency or buying train tickets. The internal passport is also required for more crucial needs, for example, finding employment or receiving medical care. The deprivation of the passport therefore represented a continuing interference with the applicant’s private life”. 77. In the Ombudsman’s view, without a passport, a person could not fully enjoy constitutional rights and freedoms, because the realisation of such rights was directly linked to documents confirming his or her identity. The seizure of such a document entailed the loss of both employment and the opportunity to find new employment or receive a pension, and the loss of medical and other types of social security and the opportunity to obtain travel documents and register a marriage. It limited property rights and also deprived the person in question of judicial remedies, even that of an appeal against decisions of the FMS. Therefore, a person whose Russian passport had been seized would find himself or herself in a worse situation than a foreign national or a stateless person living in Russia on the basis of a foreign passport or a residence permit. 78. According to the Ombudsman’s conclusions, where a Russian passport had been wrongfully issued owing to an error on the part of a State agency or agencies, the error should be rectified without detriment to the passport holder. The latter should be unconditionally recognised as a Russian citizen, at least until it was established that he or she had been granted Russian citizenship and a passport unlawfully through his or her own fault. (b) The Ombudsman’s Annual Report 2009 79. Referring again to the practice of seizing Russian passports on the grounds that they had been erroneously issued, the Ombudsman reiterated that, unless the person was found to be responsible for the alleged irregularities, all those affected by such actions should be recognised as Russian citizens, regardless of errors that may have been committed by State agencies when issuing their passports. 80. The Ombudsman further noted that the practice of seizing such passports had been discontinued. Despite this, it was scarcely possible to use those passports, since they were all registered with the Ministry of Internal Affairs as “wanted”. It was usually suggested to the holder of an “unlawful passport” to apply for a residence permit as a stateless person first