Praxis and the Civil Resource Center (CRC) Bujanovac signed an agreement on mutual cooperation on the project entitled Legal Counselling for Citizens in Presevo, financed by the EU, the Government of the Republic of Switzerland and the Government of the Republic of Serbia and implemented by CRC in the period from 1 August 2012 to 30 April 2013.

The goal of the project is to enable the marginalised population in Serbia (elderly persons, persons with special needs, single parents, internally displaced persons, the Roma and women) to exercise their basic human rights through providing them with free legal assistance in certain areas.

The non-governmental organisation Praxis committed to hold a five-day training session for the CRC lawyers as well as a workshop in Presevo on the protection from discrimination, during the project period. Moreover, the Praxis lawyers will assist the CRC lawyers with the provision of free legal assistance to the beneficiaries of that project.

On Tuesday, 24 July 2012, Praxis was visited by 20 students, 2 assistants and 1 professor from Northeastern University in Boston, department for conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction and human rights, within their study tour to Belgrade. The Praxis lawyers presented their activities related to different target groups, and the students were particularly interested in forced evictions from informal settlements and the position of "legally invisible" persons in Serbia.  In addition, the students had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of Praxis legal mobile teams by joining them in the field visit to the settlement Jabucki rit where the Roma, evicted from Belvil, are presently located.

Jasmina Mikovic, Praxis Deputy Executive Director, said in her statement for Pravi odgovor that after 10 years in displacement, internally displaced persons will be able to exercise their rights from health insurance on the grounds of a health booklet, on an equal basis with other citizens of Serbia.

Read the whole text (Serbian only): News from March 2009 published in Pravi odgovor, page 14

The Coalition for Access to Justice was established on 23 December 2011. The Coalition members are the following organisations: Centre for Advanced Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, CHRIS - Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia, Humanitarian Law Centre, Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia, Sandzak Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms and Praxis. The Coalition members have associated with the aim to jointly respond to the restrictions on the achieved level of human rights and freedoms regarding the exercise of the rights to access to justice, which ensued as the consequence of the adoption of the new Law on Civil Procedure, as well as the Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal Code.

In the upcoming period, the Coalition activities will be focused on advocating for the amendments to the aforementioned laws and the adoption of the Law on Free Legal Aid that will fully respect the citizens' interests regarding their freedom to choose and receive high-quality legal aid.

Platform for the right to adequate housing was presented today at the meeting held on the occasion of the eviction of informal Roma settlement in Block 72 in Novi Beograd. More than sixty civil society organizations (CSOs), eight networks, CSOs coalitions, and the National Council of the Roma National Minority have supported the Platform.

The Platform is an informal grouping of NGOs working at the domestic and international level on issues of human rights, anti-discrimination, anti-racism and Roma rights. The need to create this platform came from a worrying increase of forced evictions over the past three years – 15 forced evictions, which affected over 1,500 Roma, have been identified.

This document gathers the organizations which express concern over the increased number of forced evictions conducted contrary to ratified international standards binding on the Republic of Serbia, and it primarily presents the attitudes related to the forced eviction of the informal Roma settlement in Block 72. In addition, the Platform provides recommendations for all forthcoming evictions.

Platform for the right to adequate housing represents a contribution of CSOs to the elaboration of regulations or other documents, which will regulate the evictions of informal settlements in compliance with international human rights standards.

The Platform has been presented to the Ministry of Environment, Mining and Spatial Planning, Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Governance – Directorate for Human and Minority Rights, Republic Housing Agency, Commissariat for Refugees of the Republic of Serbia and representatives of the City of Belgrade. 

Download: Platform for the Right to Adequate Housing

Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure, adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on 31st August 2012, prescribes a procedure for determination of date and place of birth of persons not registered in birth registry books. Thus, the first step was made towards solving the problem of several thousands of legally invisible persons in Serbia. Through the aforementioned procedure, the persons who do not fulfil conditions for registration in birth registry book in an administrative procedure will be able to exercise their rights through a separate court procedure which recognizes the particulars of the problems they are facing.

What preceded the amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure were many years of non-governmental organizations requesting adoption of a systemic solution, as well as efforts to draw attention of the state to the difficult position of persons who failed to subsequently register in birth registry book on the grounds of the existing regulations. Namely, it is estimated that at least 6,500 legally invisible persons live in Serbia, who are, almost exclusively, members of Roma national minority. Due to the administrative obstacles, generations-long social exclusion, poverty and lack of legal solutions which would enable them to prove their identity and obtain a birth certificate, those persons cannot enjoy any of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and ratified international documents – they cannot find employment, enjoy rights from social welfare and health care, receive education without impediments, to be registered as parents of their children or enjoy a series of other rights available to other citizens of the Republic of Serbia.

Coalition against Discrimination and Coalition for Access to Justice welcome the adoption of the Law that eliminates the first obstacle in exercise of the right to recognition as a person before the law and that forms basis for registration in birth registry books for those persons who have not been able to prove their fact of birth so far. At the same time, we would like to point out that full respect of rights of the above category of persons will be achieved only when the efficient implementation of the adopted solutions is provided, as well as the implementation of the supporting regulations relating to acquisition and determination of citizenship, registration of permanent and temporary residence and obtaining of ID card.

Signatory organizations:

Coalition against Discrimination
Coalition for Access to Justice

Coalition against Discrimination: Center for Advance Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, CHRIS – Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia, Gayten LGBT, Labris, Praxis, Regional Centre for Minorities, Association of Students with Disabilities

Coalition for Access to Justice: Center for Advance Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, CHRIS – Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia, Humanitarian Law Center, Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, Praxis, Sandžak Committee for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms

ICRC’s Cash Assistance Programme (CAP) was launched in December 2003, targeting destitute IDP families falling below the national social security level, with no capacity to sustain themselves and therefore not eligible for any form of income-generation assistance. The programme was designed and implemented with the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Welfare of Serbia and Montenegro and the Commissariat for Refugees. It offered a monthly cash assistance in the amount of 30€ - equal to the standard social allowance provided by the state – to 7,500 selected IDP households (approx. 37,500 individuals).

In Serbia, the agreement was that each month, 500 out of 6,000 IDP families supported by the ICRC would be screened by the Ministry and if they met criteria, they would be included in the national social welfare system.

One of the major difficulties IDPs faced when applying for the state social assistance was to collect all required documentation. In order to overcome this problem, ICRC established cooperation with the Norwegian Refugee Council (Civil Rights Project) for obtaining necessary documents on behalf of IDPs and later on, developed the cooperation with Praxis. Praxis obtained more than 400 hundred documents (mainly excerpts from birth and citizenship registry books) for CAP beneficiaries After 12 months of the programme implementation in Serbia 16% of the initial caseload (5,761 persons) were transferred to the state social welfare system. As many as 57% (2,590 persons) of CAP beneficiaries did not formally apply for it, mainly for the lack of documentation (8%) or income-related reasons (71%). However, among those who did apply (1,961 persons) 47% were included in the social state system.

Read ICRC report from April 2005: The Situation of Internally Displaced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro
Read also: Serbia and Montenegro: the situation of the internally displaced

"There are many minors among the dozens of thousands of citizens in Serbia who have no identity documents. The problem of "legally invisible" persons in our country is the most dramatic due to a great number of refugees and internally displaced persons."

Read the whole text here.

"People who are not registered in the birth registry book do not exist from the legal point of view, they are "invisible". They do not exercise the right to health care and social protection, they have no right to vote", explained Ivana Stankovic from Praxis.

Read the whole text here.

Download: HERE