Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation

Presidential Decree No. 986 of 1 September 2009 established the position, stipulated that the Commissioner is appointed and removed by the President, and entrusted the organisational support of the office to the staff of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. Regional authorities were recommended to establish analogous positions at the level of federal subjects.^[3][4]

Federal Law No. 501-FZ of 27 December 2018 "On Commissioners for the Rights of the Child in the Russian Federation" placed the federal and regional children's ombudsmen on a unified statutory footing and has regulated their activity since 28 December 2018. The law defines the legal status of the office, its basic tasks and powers, and the foundations of the status of the regional children's commissioners, and sets a five-year term for the federal Commissioner.^[5][6]

Following the adoption of the law, Presidential Decree No. 11 of 15 January 2019 repealed the provisions of the 2009 decree that had been superseded, including the clauses on organisational support from the Civic Chamber.^[7]

Under Article 4 of Law No. 501-FZ, the Commissioner must be a citizen of Russia aged at least 30, of impeccable reputation, holding a higher-education degree, and having experience in the promotion and protection of children's rights, in the restoration of violated children's rights, or in human-rights work more generally.^[5][8]

Under Article 5 of the federal law, the principal tasks of the Commissioner are to ensure the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of children who are Russian citizens, both in Russia and abroad, and of foreign and stateless children on the territory of Russia, and to contribute to the formation and effective functioning of the state system for securing children's rights. Article 6 entrusts the Commissioner with examining complaints, requesting information from state and municipal authorities, visiting institutions where children are kept, and making proposals for improvement of legislation and administrative practice. Since December 2018 the Commissioner has also been authorised to bring court actions challenging decisions of state bodies that concern children.^[6][9]

The Commissioner may also create a coordinating council of regional children's commissioners and appoint public representatives in the federal subjects.^[9]

Presidential Decree No. 986 recommended that the authorities of the federal subjects establish their own offices of children's commissioner. Law No. 501-FZ later made the establishment of such an office in each federal subject a matter for regional discretion, with the specific candidate subject to agreement with the federal Commissioner. Since 2015, a federal subject has been permitted to entrust the functions of regional children's commissioner to its regional commissioner for human rights.^[6][10]

Four persons have held the office since its creation.^[11][12]

The first Commissioner was Aleksey Golovan, who had served since 2002 as Moscow's regional commissioner for the rights of the child. He was appointed on 1 September 2009 and resigned on 26 December 2009, after less than four months in office.^[12][13]

On 30 December 2009, Dmitry Medvedev appointed the lawyer and television presenter Pavel Astakhov as Commissioner by Decree No. 1518. During his tenure Astakhov actively promoted restrictions on foreign adoption of Russian children, including the 2012 law colloquially known as the Dima Yakovlev Law that banned adoptions by United States citizens.^[12][14] Astakhov announced his resignation in July 2016 after public outcry over remarks he had made to survivors of a drowning accident at a children's camp in Karelia in which 14 children died.^[15]

Anna Kuznetsova, a psychologist from Penza and head of the regional charitable foundation "Pokrov", was appointed Commissioner by President Vladimir Putin on 9 September 2016. In January 2019 she was reappointed to a five-year term under the newly adopted federal law.^[16][17] Her initiatives included investigating the practice of removal of children from their families by guardianship agencies and proposing a ban on forcible removal of fare-evading passengers under the age of 16 from public transport.^[18] She left the office in late September 2021 after being elected a deputy of the State Duma, where she became a deputy chair.^[19]

On 27 October 2021, Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 606 appointing Senator Maria Lvova-Belova, a member of the Federation Council for Penza Oblast, as Commissioner for a term of five years.^[20][21]

On 17 March 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging that each bore individual criminal responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of population, specifically children, from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation since at least 24 February 2022. The charges were brought under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute.^[22][23] Russia, which withdrew its signature from the Rome Statute in 2016, does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.^[24]

Lvova-Belova has also been designated under the sanctions regimes of the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and other states in connection with the same conduct.^[25]