On 24 December, 2018, Praxis held a conference in the Media Centre in Belgrade to present the achieved results and remaining challenges in the fields of prevention and elimination of statelessness and child marriages in Serbia.

The conference was opened by Ivanka Kostić, Praxis Executive Director, who welcomed the attendees and gave a brief overview of the multi-year activities implemented by Praxis in the field of preventing statelessness and child marriages with the financial support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). On that occasion, Ivanka pointed out that thanks to free legal assistance provided by Praxis, in the period of 14 years over 90,000 people had been able to access their basic status rights. She also expressed hope that in the course of 2019, a systemic solution to the problem of stateless persons and legally invisible children would finally be found. Referring to the problem of child marriages in Serbia, Ivanka pointed out that the legal provision allowing early marriages after reaching the age of 16 in exceptional cases had been deleted from the current Draft Law on Family, which indicated the state’s willingness to eradicate child marriages.

Participants were then addressed by Hans Friedrich Schoder, UNHCR Representative in Serbia, who pointed out that in the same period the number of persons at risk of statelessness decreased from 30,000 to 2,100. He highlighted that child marriages represented a disregard for international conventions, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, endangered the girls’ health and had an additional impact on the emergence of statelessness. He also expressed his satisfaction for continuing the cooperation with Praxis and his expectation that a common goal would be achieved and that a systemic solution to the problem of statelessness would be found.

Milan Radojev, Praxis Status and Socioeconomic Rights Programme Coordinator, presented all the remaining problems faced by people at risk of statelessness and pointed out that there were still newborns in Serbia who could not be registered immediately after birth due to the two by-laws that did not allow their registration if their parents did not possess personal documents, and added that Praxis had submitted an initiative to the Constitutional Court for examining the constitutionality and legality of these regulations, and sent an appeal to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-government regarding their amendments.

Nataša Živković, Head of Sector for Personal Status of Citizens, Keeping Registers and Electoral Rights of the Secretariat for Administration in the Belgrade City Administration, spoke about the background of the problem of illegally invisible persons in Belgrade, as well as the beginning of successful cooperation with Praxis, dating back to 2012. 

Jelena Petrović, Praxis Child Rights Programme Coordinator, presented the activities implemented by Praxis aimed at raising awareness about the harmfulness of child, early and forced marriages and explained that a major obstacle to fighting against child marriages was the perceiving of the phenomenon of child marriages out of the context of Roma tradition and culture, in particular by the competent authorities, and the lack of records on child marriage cases kept by relevant institutions.

Sadija Gicić, a social worker and women’s rights activist, spoke about the responsibilities of institutions in cases of child marriage. She stressed the importance of timely response of institutions and pointed to their duty to act in accordance with binding protocols.

Finally, it was concluded that, regardless of the achievements in the field of prevention and elimination of the emergence of legally invisible persons, it was necessary to continue the intensive work on eliminating the remaining challenges in order to prevent the emergence of new cases of legally invisible and stateless persons. In the field of prevention and elimination of child marriages, in addition to the civil sector that was making the biggest contribution in combating this extremely harmful traditional practice, decision makers, social welfare centres, the police, prosecution, schools, health care institutions and the media should be involved more actively and in a coordinated manner, because without efforts of all relevant actors, it was not possible to ensure a solution to this problem.

For more information, see the announcement here.

A series of recommendations issued to Serbia by international organisations and treaty bodies indicate that the situation in Serbia related to timely birth registration is not satisfactory. Thus, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended to Serbia to enhance its efforts to enable registration of children born to parents without identification documents. Similar recommendations were given by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The European Parliament called for full implementation of the right to timely birth registration, while the the UN Human Rights Council, in the Universal Periodic Review for Serbia, recommended to Serbia to provide the registration into birth registry books immediately after birth, without discrimination and regardless of whether parents had personal documents. Serbia accepted this recommendation of the UN Human Rights Council and committed to fulfil the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including to provide universal registration into birth registry books. 

However, despite the accepted obligations and proclaimed commitment to allowing every child to register in birth registry books immediately after birth, Serbia has not yet removed legal obstacles that impede registration of a significant number of children. Moreover, in 2018, the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-government refused Praxis’ suggestions to amend legislation to allow all children to be timely registered in birth registry books. 

Given the fact that this situation is unsustainable both in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of compliance of secondary legislation with primary legislation, with Serbia being in the position of a state that does not fulfil its international obligations, Praxis once again stresses that it is necessary that the competent institutions take immediate action to allow every child to be registered in birth registry books immediately after birth.

For more information, see the announcement here.

The Paperless People Podcastfollows the stories of two Roma families, exploring how policies in Serbia are perpetuating their legal invisibility. Through these stories and expert analysis, it is explored how the UN Sustainable Development Goals may struggle to achieve what they set out to do if the approach to implementation and monitoring does not account for structural discrimination that is too often leaving certain people behind: in this case the Roma in Serbia. 

This podcast series, produced by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, with the support of the Knowledge Platform for Security and the Rule of Law (Knowledge Management Fund), explores how the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals need to be re-thought in order to effectively address statelessness challenges. 

This episode was created in close partnership with Praxis, a human rights organization based in Serbia. With thanks to Ivanka Kostic and her team.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

Listen to this episode here.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government believes that there are no reasons to amend the by-laws that hinder birth registration immediately after birth of children whose parents do not possess personal documents. Such an opinion stems from the response which the Ministry sent to Praxis upon the recently submitted appeal to amend the provisions of two by-laws (Instruction on administering registry books and forms of registry books and Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care). Praxis stated in the appeal that these by-laws were in contradiction with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Family Law and ratified international conventions, since many children are left without birth registration immediately after birth. 

The Ministry disregarded these arguments in its response, stating that the normative framework enabled every person to be registered in the birth registry books. It also stated that the problems in birth registration were overcome. However, the Ministry did not take into consideration the fact that not only would the children whose parents do not possess documents not be able to get registered in the birth registry book immediately after birth, but also that additional, often lengthy procedures would have to be conducted for them.

In this way, the Ministry disregarded the opinions of many international organizations and treaty bodies which emphasised in their recommendations to Serbia that the children whose parents do not possess documents must be enabled to register in the birth registry books immediately after birth. Furthermore, the Ministry also neglected its obligation stemming from the Operational conclusions from the seminar “Social Inclusion of Roma in the Republic of Serbia 2017”  to ensure the fulfilment of the right to report and register births of children whose parent do not possess personal documents. 

Government of the Republic of Serbia, in cooperation with the European Commission, organized the fourth seminar “Social Inclusion of Roma in the Republic of Serbia” in October 2017. The seminar is a biennial meeting, first organized in 2011, dedicated to the status of Roma in the region organised by the European Commission. Roma seminars are the main channel of communication between the European Commission/EU Delegation and Serbian authorities dealing with these issues. The Seminar discussed actions to improve the status of Roma in education, implemented activities and observed problems at the national and local level in the field of employment of Roma, social and health protection of Roma, housing and legalisation of Roma settlements as well as challenges and possible solutions to the issue of personal documents and the status of IDPs and returnees under the Readmission Agreement.

Ivanka Kostic, Praxis’ Executive Director, once again pointed at the problem faced by undocumented parents when registering the birth of their children, and advocated for the systemic solution of the problem through the amendments of relevant regulations/bylaws.

By achieving this goal, new cases of statelessness would be prevented. Children whose parents do not possess personal documents could be registered in the birth registry immediately after birth and exercise their other basic rights.

For more information, see the announcement.

In its work, Praxis continually encounters undocumented women who have given birth and who cannot register their children in birth registry books. In some cases, due to not possessing documents, mothers and their children not only lose the opportunity of receiving parental and child allowances and exercising their right to social assistance, but are also brought to the situation of being asked to pay for expenses, which does not happen to persons who possess personal documents. Moreover, sometimes they are asked to pay even for the expenses that they are not legally obliged to pay. It should be noted that in Serbia the problem of not possessing documents almost always affects members of the Roma national minority, who are among the poorest and most marginalised citizens.

Praxis was addressed by S.Z. seeking free legal aid. She did not have personal documents because the birth register book in which she had been registered remained unavailable to the authorities of the Republic of Serbia after the 1999 Kosovo conflict. She gave birth in late July, but - unlike mothers with an ID card - she was unable to determine her child's name in the maternity hospital, register the child’s permanent residence and register the child to health insurance. Moreover, she and her newborn were not allowed to leave the maternity hospital until she took the hospital bill in the amount of RSD 234,000. On that occasion, the mother and her cohabiting partner were told that they had to pay the bill within one month or to register to health insurance, otherwise they would be sued.

N.A. faced a similar problem. She does not have documents because her mother did not have an ID card at the time of child delivery, and therefore she was not able to register her child into birth registry books. Consequently, N.A., who gave birth about a month ago, could not register her newborn child into birth registry books either. In her case, the maternity hospital did not ask for the payment of child delivery costs, but the child had to be hospitalised soon after birth where it was treated for seven days. Upon completion of treatment, the mother was asked to pay RSD 44,000.  In both cases, Praxis has pointed out to health care institutions that these cases should be treated as urgent and that patients should not be asked to pay the costs, but it remains to be seen whether the hospital will give up the intention to collect the payment.

Such situations would be avoided by registering every child into birth registry books immediately after birth, because it would allow the child to obtain a health card immediately as well as to access other rights. This would also ensure adherence to the principle according to which the best interest of the child must always be in the first place, as well as compliance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and ratified international conventions guaranteeing to every child the right to birth registration and to a personal name immediately after birth.

Therefore, it is necessary to change, without delay, the provisions of the Instruction on administering civil registry books and forms of registry books and the Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care institution, which prevent the birth registration of children whose mothers do not possess personal documents. This would prevent the generation of new legally invisible persons, and give an opportunity to a considerable number of children, who would otherwise be without documents, to get the necessary protection in the most vulnerable period of their lives. Therefore, in mid-July Praxis sent an appeal to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-government, which is responsible for these regulations, to urgently amend the controversial provisions.

For more information, see the announcement.

Civil society organisations are concerned about the provisions contained in the Draft Law on Free Legal Aid, which directly affect the right to effective and equitable access to justice for all persons in need of this type of assistance. 

The Draft Law brings confusion to the existing legal provisions by introducing a very vague provision according to which attorneys-at-law shall provide free legal aid on behalf of the CSOs legally entitled to provide free legal aid. We recall that the Law on Civil Procedure stipulates that the legal representative of a party may be an attorney-at-law, relative or spouse, representative of free legal aid service, lawyer that passed the bar exam representing the legal entity in which he or she is employed, and a representative of a trade union. Moreover, the smallest part of free legal aid services are in-court representations or representations before state authorities, while most of them consist of free legal advice and filing submissions. 

The Draft Law directly discriminates against lawyers as service providers on the basis of the place of their employment or engagement. It is unclear why a lawyer employed in local self-government is allowed not only to provide free legal aid, but also to issue decisions granting the right to free legal aid, while a lawyer employed with social welfare centre, court, prosecutor’s office or CSO is not allowed to do so? 

This affects primarily the citizens in need of legal assistance because the Draft Law directly links the means test with the right to free legal aid equalising it with the means test for social assistance and the right to child allowance. This means that all individuals who do not fall into this category, or some of the categories specified in the law, shall be denied this type of assistance. 

It is unacceptable that a law whose purpose is to facilitate effective and equitable access to justice for the most vulnerable groups of citizens, in this case the Law on Free Legal Aid, limits this right by derogating the existing legal provisions and recognising the right to free legal aid to a small group of persons, while not allowing the provision of assistance by any CSO lawyers who have been performing this work for years.  

Civil society organisations involved in the protection of human rights do not request state funding for free legal aid activities, but they ask for allowing civil society organisations to continue providing free legal aid to a large group of citizens who need this kind of assistance in order to protect and exercise the rights guaranteed not only by the Constitution but also by numerous international documents, and above all the right to access justice. 

For more information, see the announcement.

Praxis submitted the Initiative to the Constitutional Court of Serbia for assessment of the provisions of two by-laws that prevent registration of children in the birth registry immediately after birth in case when children’s parents do not possess personal documents.

These by-laws are the Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care institution and the Instruction on administering registry books and forms of registry books, which provide for birth registration only of the new-born children whose mothers possess personal documents. For this reason, children whose mothers do not possess ID cards will not be able to obtain a birth certificate immediately after birth. Thus, they will be deprived of health care and social welfare services in the most vulnerable period of life, as well as of access to all rights the exercise of which is conditioned by the possession of personal documents. What is even more worrying is the fact that the problem of lack of documentation in Serbia almost exclusively affects members of the Roma ethnic minority, who are the most discriminated against and most marginalized population in Serbia.

In the stated Initiative, Praxis argues that the provisions of the by-laws are not in accordance with the provisions of the Serbian Constitution, the Family Law and ratified international conventions which guarantee the right to birth registration and personal name to every child, immediately after birth. Therefore, Praxis expects the Constitutional Court to initiate proceeding for constitutional review and to abolish the stated provisions of the by-laws. In this way, not only would the by-laws be harmonized with legal norms of greater legal force, but the impermissible practice that results in the violation of the basic human rights of the most vulnerable population in Serbia would be put to an end and new cases of legally invisible persons would be prevented.

Praxis sent an appeal to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government to undertake measures within its jurisdiction to remove legal obstacles that prevent birth registration immediately after birth in case of children whose mothers do not possess personal documents.

Various international organizations and treaty bodies have also pointed to this problem in Serbia. Within the Third Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) concerning Serbia, the UN Human Rights Council gave, among others, a recommendation to the Republic of Serbia to ensure that all children born in Serbia have access to timely birth registration immediately after birth, without discrimination and regardless of the legal or documentation status of their parents.

Apart from the UN Human Rights Council, other international organizations and treaty bodies have also drawn attention to this problem (Concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to the combined second and third periodic review of the Republic of Serbia; 2018 Report on Serbia by the European Commission). Furthermore, Serbia has committed to implement UN Sustainable Development Goals, one of them (SDG 16.9) being to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.

The fact that the situation in Serbia concerning access to right to birth registration is not satisfactory has also been emphasised in the Statelessness Index, which gives an overview of how different countries in Europe protect stateless persons and what they do in order to prevent and reduce statelessness. Even though Serbia received good review in relation to some aspects, the review was poor in relation to exercise of the right to timely birth registration of children in the birth registry books and in relation to prevention of statelessness of persons born in Serbia.

Apart from the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Praxis also appealed to the Ombudsperson to contribute to removing the stated legal obstacles within its scope of authority.

For more information, see the announcement. 

National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on Amendments to the Law on Registry Books on 20 June 2018. The new law will enter into force on 1 January 2019. 

On this occasion, an opportunity was missed to resolve the problem of birth registration of children whose mothers do not possess personal documents. Specifically, two by-laws that regulate the procedure of birth notification and registration in the birth registry book contain provisions that prevent registration of all data on the new-born children immediately after birth, including children’s names, if their mothers do not possess personal documents.

This actually means that these children will not have a birth certificate in the most vulnerable part of their lives and, consequently, they will be left without the possibility to exercise rights to health care or social protection. In Serbia, this problem almost exclusively affects members of Roma ethnic minority and only further aggravates their already difficult position.

During the public debate on the draft law, Praxis requested that a provision be included in the law that would oblige the registrars to register a child in the birth registry regardless of whether child's parents possess personal documents. Unfortunately, this suggestion was not accepted.

For more information, see the announcement.