The lawsuit to overturn the ruling of the Moscow Region authorities as discriminatory was filed by guardians of orphans, whose interests were represented by the Moscow Region Prosecutor's Office and the first child rights ombudsman in Russia, the head of the Complicity in Destiny charitable foundation Alexei Golovan. 

The Moscow Regional Court upheld the plaintiffs, canceling the relevant normative act since its adoption in 2019, but the government and the Ministry of Education of the Moscow Region filed appeals. 

The first court of appeal put an end to this case.  

"The decision of the Moscow Regional Court of September 3, 2020 to leave unchanged, the appeals of the government of the Moscow region and the Ministry of Education of the Moscow region were dismissed," the judge said. 

This decision was awaited by dozens of orphans, who had already been denied the right to receive housing, Alexey Golovan told RT.

"The five-year period of residence of orphans on the territory of the Moscow region, established by the government of the Moscow region, was declared illegal and canceled in order to include them in the list to provide them with housing in the region," he explained. 

According to him, this procedure was declared invalid from the moment of adoption - from December 2019.

That is, all decisions made on the basis of this norm of "residency qualification" are subject to revision. 

"The authorities cannot refuse to provide housing to orphans on the principle that they have been living in the Moscow region for less than five years," the interlocutor of RT concluded. 

The right of orphans to receive housing at the expense of the state upon reaching the age of 18 is enshrined in the federal law "On additional guarantees for social support of orphans and children left without parental care", and the procedure for registering orphans in need of housing is approved by a decree of the Russian government.

In particular, it provides for the inclusion of orphans in the appropriate list when children reach the age of 14.