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Law on Permanent and Temporary Residence of Citizens that came into force on 29 November 2011 offers a more advanced solution with regard to determination of permanent residence for persons who do not have legal basis of residence. If a citizen cannot register permanent residence on one of the legal bases (ownership right over the apartment, contract on lease of the apartment or other legal bases), competent body will bring a decision determining permanent residence at the address of the institution where the citizen is permanently accommodated or the social welfare centre in the territory of which the citizen is located. The citizen should address the institution or the centre with a request so that his/her address can be registered at the address of the institution/centre. Adoption of a by-law is expected in the upcoming period that should ensure implementation of the newly adopted solution.

Besides, the Law simplifies the procedure for registration of new permanent residence, because a citizen will no longer be obliged to deregister residence in the earlier place of permanent residence, which ensures faster registration of residence and simplified record keeping.

As part of the Project “Equal Opportunity for Better Perspectives, Strengthening Roma People to Combat Discrimination,” implemented by the Office of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality of the Republic of Serbia, in cooperation with Praxis a public discussion was held for members of the Roma community in Novi Pazar. Organization of the discussion is a part of the information and education campaign of the Commissioner aimed at raising awareness and strengthening vulnerable social groups to combat discrimination.

The discussion gathered Roma activists, local Roma population and representatives of organizations the activities of which are directed at protection and assistance to marginalized and excluded social groups, primarily members of Roma community.

Bearing in mind the extent of discrimination the Roma are exposed to, the number of complaints filed last year by the members of Roma community and the associations working on the protection of the rights of Roma is relatively small. This information was particularly emphasised by the representatives of the Office of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality who used the opportunity to invite the participants to respond to occurrences of violation of the right to equality by filing complaints to the Commissioner, pointing out that the procedure is free and that the complaint can be filed by mail. Furthermore, they distributed the printed edition of the 2011 Regular Annual Report of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality to the participants, as well as the complaint form in the Romani language.

In addition to presenting the work of the institution and its competence, the representatives of the Commissioner strived to bring closer to the participants the general notion of discrimination, to provide detailed information about the manner of filing the complaint and the course of the procedure, as well as the significance and effects of the Commissioner’s decisions on complaints. Representative of Praxis gave an overview of access to basic rights and the most frequent problems and obstacles hindering the exercise of those rights.

On the other hand, the participants of the discussion were provided with an opportunity to present their observations and experience with regard to exercise of rights. Thus, they pointed to the difficulty and often the impossibility to access the rights at all. Besides, they stated that they often felt socially excluded, giving examples from everyday life that testified of the extent of deprivation of rights of the members of Roma community.

With an aim to achieve factual equality of rights, it was concluded that it was necessary to create social, political, economic and other prerequisites to secure effective enjoyment of rights and freedoms for the members of the vulnerable and marginalized social groups. The fact is that it is necessary to build a tolerant environment and work on reduction of social distance to minority groups if we are to successfully combat discrimination. Until the above-mentioned has been secured, the procedure upon complaints filed for discrimination, which is conducted by the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, undoubtedly represents important contribution to combat against discrimination. For this reason, it is essential to make this institution more available to citizens and to enable them to protect their right to equality through the procedure before the Commissioner for Protection of Equality.

Ivana Stankovic, Praxis Programme Coordinator, told for Daily Danas that legally invisible persons cannot obtain health booklets because they are not registered in birth registry books, which prevents them from enclosing evidence to the request for issuance of a health booklet.

Read more in Danas

Every person in Europe should benefit from the rights provided for by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. However, despite living in a region that enjoys an advanced human rights framework, hundreds of thousands of stateless persons in Europe continue to have little or no access to many fundamental human rights.  These “legal ghosts” are left voiceless and experience daily exclusion as a result. This brings into stark perspective the importance of human rights which guarantee our ability to be heard, to associate with others and to participate in democratic processes.

In Serbia today, thousands of individuals are deprived of exercising their basic human rights due to unregulated citizenship status. This number includes those who are not registered in birth registries and are consequently left without citizenship. Moreover, some were registered in citizens’ books that were later destroyed or went missing, while some were left without the citizenship after the dissolution of the former Yugoslav Republic or acquired the citizenship of the republic they were not living in anymore. Most of these persons are members of the Roma national minority, one of the most vulnerable and marginalized population groups in Serbia, which have being living through generations without any evidence on their identity, birth or origin due to poverty and social exclusion, inadequate regulations and long-lasting ignorance of their problem. They are not just voiceless but are also invisible to the system. Being deprived of the citizenship means being deprived of the possibility to exercise the right to health care, social protection, employment and the right to participate in the political life.

We believe that all human beings have a right to a nationality and that those who lack nationality altogether are entitled to adequate protection - including the freedom to speak and be heard, to associate with others and to partake in democratic processes. 

In light of strong pledges made by many European countries to end statelessness, and to identify and protect stateless populations to ensure their enjoyment of human rights, the European Network on Statelessness marks international human rights day by drawing attention to hundreds of thousands of stateless persons in Europe, whose voices should count as much as our own, but do not.

The position of the stateless is the focus of a public statement released today by the European Network on Statelessness, a civil society alliance with NGO Praxis as its member, committed to address statelessness in Europe.

See: Statement of the European Statelessness Network

Within the project "Fighting discrimination and building a culture of tolerance through dialogue, legal reform and active monitoring of discriminatory practice" realized by the Center for Advanced Legal Studies in cooperation with members of the Coalition against Discrimination, which consists of the Center for Advanced Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, Labris - Organization for Lesbian Rights, CHRIS Network, Association of Disabled Students, Gayten LGBT, Praxis and Regional Centre for Minorities and AIRE Centre from London, a series of roundtables have been organized throughout Serbia with the basic aim of considering the problem of discrimination in local communities.

Discussions transmitted to readers of this publication point to some of paradigmatic cases of discriminatory practice and participants' attutudes towards them.

Download (only in Serbian): Discrimination in Serbia in 2012 - roundtables

Praxis held today a roundtable in the Media Centre in Belgrade within the project funded by UNHCR, directed at the prevention of statelessness in Serbia, with an aim of presenting the adopted legal solutions that enable facilitated procedures for proving the date and place of persons not registered in birth registries and determination of permanent residence at the address of Social Welfare Centre and their implementation.

Read the news on Media Centre

The representatives of Praxis held a guest lecture at the School of Romology 9 at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. The School of Romology is an interdisciplinary programme where attendants study Romany history, culture and language, and the goal of the programme is acquainting the attendants with the basic knowledge of Romology and sensitizing the wider public to the needs of the Roma community.

At the guest lecture, the attendants  were acquainted with the most significant problems faced by the Roma community in Serbia in exercising the basic human rights. In that regard, the problems faced by legally invisible persons, i.e. persons not registered in birth registries, the consequences of forced evictions of informal Roma settlements and systemic discrimination in the respective areas were also presented. In addition, the attendants saw the documentary film “Here I Am”.

The lecture was followed by a discussion when concrete measures for the improvement of exercise of the rights of legally invisible and forcibly evicted Roma were proposed and the continuation of the cooperation in future cycles of School of Romology announced.

The documentary “Here I Am”, produced by Praxis in cooperation with Dokukino and with financial support from the European Union, will be presented at the Human Rights Festival in Zagreb (8-14 December 2012) and in Rijeka (12-16 December 2012). Human Rights Film Festival was established in 2002 with an aim to enhance the visibility of topics that promote open-mindedness, multiculturalism, tolerance, freedom of choice.

“Here I Am” examines the existential problems of the residents of informal Roma settlements in Serbia and introduces viewers to the very much alive, parallel world of the marginalised whose faith and hope are their basic tools of survival. In the spirit of the marginalised and from the subjective point of view, the leading actor presents to the audience his friends whose fate often depends only on one paper or somebody's good will.

In order to draw the public attention to the most marginalised minority group in Serbia and appeal for the solution of its problem, Praxis and its partners have also made short video clips of the documentary, which can be viewed on YouTube through the links entitled “Here I Am -Legally Invisible” and “Here I Am - Forced Evictions”.

On the occasion of the 53rd Session of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which will review the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in the Republic of Serbia, Praxis submitted a Parallel Report in cooperation with the European Roma Rights Centre. In order to give a clearer picture about the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Parallel Report contains information about the problems in the fields regulated by the Convention, primarily problems faced by women from particularly vulnerable groups – refugee, internally displaced and Roma women.

The Report gives information on implementation of the Convention in the fields of prevention of sexual and gender based violence, information on mechanisms for achievement of gender equality, access to right to personal documents, education, employment and health protection. The report further provides information relating to forced evictions from informal Roma settlements, as well as impeded access to justice.

At the end of the report, Praxis and the ERRC have suggested to the CEDAW recommendations the adoption of which would enable improvement of implementation of the Convention.

Review of the implementation of the Convention in Serbia was scheduled for October 2012, but, according to unofficial information, it will be postponed for mid-2013.

Download: Parallel Report to the Committee on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women