After receiving response from Moscow, disabled woman from Sochi loses hope for justice

An official from the Russian presidential administration has promised Guzel Gilmanova, a disabled woman from childhood from Sochi, who has been on the waiting list for housing for 35 years, to assist in obtaining an apartment in the near future, but in his written response he said that local authorities were not providing her with an apartment on legal grounds. According to Gilmanova, after another refusal to satisfy her complaint in court and the official's response, she has lost faith in justice.

In January 2023, the Krasnodar Territorial Court ignored the arguments of Gilmanova, whom the Sochi Mayoralty refused to resettle from her dilapidated house to some comfortable housing. Gilmanova's house was declared an emergency one back in 2020, but the time to resettle it has not come up yet, said an official from the Sochi Property Relations Department. The prosecutor's office, contrary to the law, has failed to react to the violation of the disabled person's rights.

The official's response "contains refusals on all the points, although my right to receive a due housing is recognized," Ms Gilmanova has noted.

"Guzel Gilmanova ... is eligible for receiving a comfortable housing and for immediate, even extraordinary resettlement," Alexei Shak, an advocate, has explained, noting that officials bear no responsibility for non-fulfilment of the laws. He believes that court decisions should be appealed against at the Supreme Court.