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Download the analysis: The Right to Cash Social Assistance to a Beneficiary Who Has the Right to Financial Support – Legal Analysis of the Article 84 of the Law on Social Protection by Nikola Bodiorga, PhD

Nikola Bodiroga, PhD, has prepared the legal analysis of the Article 84 of the Law on Social Protection, with the support of the non-governmental organization Praxis, within the project “Contribution to Social Inclusion and Combat against Discrimination of Marginalized Population in Serbia”, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The analysis deals with the problem of exercise of the right to cash social assistance to a beneficiary who has the right to financial support, in relation to the obligation of an applicant to deliver, along with the application, the verdict reached against the relative who, according to the Family Law, is obliged to provide financial support, or court settlement specified in the procedure.

After presenting the general and special conditions for the exercise of the right to cash social assistance and analysis of the application of the Article 84 of the Law on Social Protection, which is based on Praxis practice and experience in providing free legal aid, the author concludes that Article 84 basically limits the right to cash social assistance. Assessing the effects of the application of this decision, it is stated that Article 84 does not significantly contribute to reduction of the amount of cash social assistance, and costs arising as a result of its application are should be covered both by the parties in the procedure and the state, while the goal was exactly the opposite. Finally, the author concludes that limiting the right to cash social assistance by introducing the obligation of litigation is incommensurate and threatens the very essence of the pledged right.

Download the analysis: The Right to Cash Social Assistance to a Beneficiary Who Has the Right to Financial Support – Legal Analysis of the Article 84 of the Law on Social Protection

On 15 January 2014 a meeting was held in Vranje with representatives of municipal authorities, institutions and civil society. The meeting is the second in a series of meetings organised by Praxis as part of the project Access to Social Welfare and Health Protection for Vulnerable Groups in the South of Serbia - Phase II, implemented by Praxis with the support of the Foundation Caritas Luxembourg.

The aim of the meeting was to strengthen cooperation between the stakeholders in the local community and align the practices of authorities and service providers with regard to access to health care and social protection and other basic rights for vulnerable population, Roma and internally displaced persons, since access to health care and social protection often depends on access to other rights such as the right to permanent residence registration, registration into civil registry books, etc. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Social Welfare Centre, the Vranje Police Administration, the Secretariat for General Administration responsible for administering civil records, pedagogical assistant, trustee for refugees and migrants, and representatives of non-governmental organisations Nexus and Association Bakija Bakić from Vranje, as well as Roma activists.

In addition to the various problems affecting the most vulnerable social groups in Vranje, representatives of the Social Welfare Centre highlighted the difficulties faced by citizens in accessing the right to social assistance given that citizens waited for decisions for a very long time. The problems are a direct consequence of insufficient capacity of and resources at the disposal of the institution. In support of this statement, they presented the information that by mid-2013 only one social worker had performed the work of the recognition of entitlement to social assistance, that three social workers had been working since that time and that the average number of requests annually per one social worker was around 1500, whereas the number of requests for this type of social protection was annually increased by about 2000. The situation is even more serious when it comes to exercising the right to one-off financial assistance since the beneficiaries usually wait longer than two years, which renders the purpose of this assistance totally meaningless.

Since this meeting was not attended by any representative of the Republic Fund for Health Insurance, or health mediators, in the part of the meeting relating to access to health care for vulnerable groups of citizens it was stated that access to this group of rights was often impossible for the most vulnerable persons, and all participants agreed that it was necessary to intensify advocacy efforts to address this systemic problem.

It is worth noting that the participants considered that such meetings were very useful for educating, informing and further sensitising the staff of institutions, in addition to being important for improving mutual cooperation.

Within the framework of the project Access to Social Welfare and Health Protection for Vulnerable Groups in the South of Serbia - Phase II, implemented by Praxis with the support of the Foundation Caritas Luxembourg, which aims to improve access to health protection and social welfare for Roma and internally displaced persons in Pčinja District, on 5 December 2013 Praxis organised a meeting with representatives of municipal authorities, institutions and civil society in Bujanovac. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Social Welfare Centre, the Police Station in Bujanovac, the Republic Fund for Health Insurance - Branch Office in Bujanovac, the National Employment Service, the Office of the Protector of Citizens, the municipal Roma coordinator, the trustee for refugees and displaced persons, health mediators and representatives of non-governmental organisations Civil Resource Center, Youth Forum for Education of Roma - YFER and Roma Humanitarian Centre.

Pointing to current problems regarding access to the rights in the fields of social welfare and health protection, the participants particularly stressed the importance of the effective exercise of the right to be recognised as a person before the law, citizenship, registration of permanent and temporary residence, etc., as a condition for access to socio-economic rights.

As regards the rights in the field of social protection, the subjects of discussion were the actions of the Social Welfare Centre in Bujanovac regarding the right to financial social assistance for internally displaced persons accommodated in collective centres, that is, denial of the right to this category of citizens, which the institution bases on the opinion that this category of citizens meets a minimum level of social security. It was agreed with representatives of the Social Welfare Centre that Praxis would request the official opinion of the competent Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Policy.

Concerning the degree of availability of health care, it was noted at the meeting that the problem related to the exercise of this right required systemic solutions and that little could be done at the local level about the existing regulations in this field, given that, in line with the latest amendments to the Decree published in the Official Gazette of RS, numbers 54/2010, 124/2012 of 6 January 2013, the possibility of issuing health cards on the basis of statements on factual residence for persons without registered permanent or temporary residence ceased to exist, and at the same time it was concluded that this problem must be solved at the national level.

The representatives of institutions and civil society participated actively at the meeting, presenting the examples of good practice and stressing that access to rights can be significantly improved by the enhancement of cooperation between relevant bodies, but also gave examples illustrating that in cases where there was no such cooperation and communication, immeasurable consequences to the detriment of citizens ensued.

Praxis published the report Analysis of Practical Application of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure – Determining the Date and Place of Birth within the project directed at reduction and prevention of statelessness in Serbia, funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The aim of this report is to recall the reasons for prescribing the procedure for determining the date and place of birth by adopting the Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure in 2012, present the way of its application in practice and to suggest the measures that should be taken in order to fully resolve the problem of legally invisible persons.

The report relies on data deriving from the experience that Praxis gained from representing legally invisible persons in procedures for determining the date and place of birth and information Praxis received from courts by sending the request for free access to information of public importance related to the number and outcome of procedures for determining the date and place of birth.

Finally, the conclusion is that the procedure for determining the date and place of birth can be considered a major progress in the efforts to reduce the number of legally invisible persons, but this procedure cannot completely prevent the emergence of new generations of legally invisible persons. In order to prevent the occurrence of this phenomenon, in addition to efficient procedures for determining the date and place of birth, it is necessary to ensure an efficient and simple system of birth registration, which would allow every child to be registered immediately after birth, regardless of the parents' status and regardless of whether the parents have personal documents.

Download the report: Analysis of Practical Application of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure – Determining the Date and Place of Birth

Taken from the website of Autonomous Women’s Centre
 
The roundtable entitled What kind of law on free legal aid do we need?," organised by the Autonomous Women's Centre, in cooperation with Praxis and the coalition of civil society organisations, which believe that the current draft law is not good, was a forum for discussion on the key shortcomings of the proposed draft.

The representatives of organisations and institutions highlighted some serious problems in relation to the fundamental issues of the draft law:

• in defining the circle of beneficiaries, which is both under-inclusive and too broadly defined, which puts citizens in an unequal position in relation to the place of living and leaves enormous discretion in deciding who is entitled to secondary legal aid;
  
  
• in the fact that primary legal aid is not guaranteed by the state, because it is not financed from the state budget, although it should be a basic human right and the foundation of a democratic society;
  
  
• in a complicated procedure for exercising the right to secondary legal aid, which makes it difficult for specific groups of citizens to access the public administration body that decides on the request, and in some cases a preliminary legal procedure needs to be initiated in order to exercise the right to free legal representation;
  
  
• in selecting the social welfare centre as administration body that decides on the request for obtaining free legal aid, which neither has resources nor sufficient knowledge in the fields beyond social protection, and in some cases it may be in direct conflict of interest;
  
  
• in understanding the problems of financing free legal aid, which compromises the provision of primary legal aid, as basic right of every citizen, irrespective of the issue of poverty;
  
  
• in not recognising the specialization of providers in certain legal areas and failure to recognise the obligation of the state to guarantee free legal aid to those groups of citizens that are recognised as free legal aid beneficiaries by international treaties accepted by the Republic of Serbia, including victims of violence, or by the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which was ratified by the Republic of Serbia on 31 October 2013.

Although the representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration and the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Affairs tried to give answers to the presented criticism, it seems that there was not enough understanding of the fundamental problems opened by the draft law.

At the end of the roundtable it was concluded that we were not closer to a better solution, but that civil society organisations should continue exerting pressure on decision makers to avoid non-substantial changes. The key issues of the Law on Free Legal Aid in this draft should be placed on better foundations, so that the Law reflects and corresponds to reality, that it is rational, functional and viable, but also fair and just. All the interested public and international organisations should be mobilised in this effort.

Taken from the web site of the Provincial Ombudsperson of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina

A number of women from the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina addressed the Provincial Ombudsperson because some health institutions had refused to provide health care services to them for lack of health booklets, despite their right to the services as per the Law on the Exercise of the Right to Health Care by Children, Pregnant Women and New Mothers which came into effect on 27 November 2013.

In order to inform the public, we point to the fact that the Republic Fund for Health Insurance referred instructions to all its branches regarding the implementation of the Law which state that children up to 18 years of age, pregnant women and new mothers in the period of 12 months following childbirth  have the right to complete healthcare protection, including the right to medications in accordance with the Law on Health Insurance and general acts of the Republic Fund for Health Insurance, as well as to the travel cost reimbursement related to use of healthcare services, regardless of the basis of health insurance and of whether their health insurance documents are verified, while the costs shall be borne by the Republic Fund.

On the basis of this instruction, the branch offices of the Republic Fund for Health Insurance should have immediately informed all healthcare institutions on their respective territories that, despite not having verified health booklets, they were obliged to provide healthcare services to children up to 18 years of age on the basis of the health booklet and child’s date of birth, to pregnant women on the basis of the health booklet and a report from a gynaecologist on pregnancy, and to new mothers in the period of 12 months following childbirth on the basis of the health booklet and discharge papers from the hospital following labour.

The second instruction of the Republic Fund for Health Insurance explains that the health insurance document implies a health booklet, a certificate on use of healthcare services or a health insurance card. Children, pregnant women and new mothers shall have the right to complete healthcare protection even if they are issued a certificate on use of healthcare services. It means that, for example, a pregnant woman who possesses a health booklet which is not verified shall have the right to complete healthcare protection and not only to protection relating to pregnancy.

Pregnant women and new mothers (employed, entrepreneurs) with unverified health booklet do not have the right to salary allowance during temporary inability to work.

When using healthcare services in a health institution, a child, pregnant woman and a new mother prove their status of the insured person by their date of birth, report of a gynaecologist, and discharge papers following childbirth. Exceptionally, health institutions may accept as evidence that a woman is a new mother a birth certificate of the child with the date of birth visible.

Insured child up to 18 years of age, pregnant woman or a new mother may exercise the right to health protection if they possess a health booklet which is not verified. In case they do not possess it because their status of an insured person has not been determined, their status of an insured person should be determined as per the provisions of the Law on Health Insurance and a health booklet should be immediately issued. Thus, the stated persons will be issued a health booklet even when the conditions for verifying it have not been met.

Branch offices of the Republic Fund for Health Insurance are obliged to enable issuance of necessary evaluation of a medical committee to the stated insured persons for the purpose of exercising certain rights to heath protection and travel costs reimbursement.

Provincial Ombudsperson invites all citizens who have been denied healthcare services by a health institution, to which they are entitled as per the Law on the Exercise of the Right to Health Care by Children, Pregnant Women and New Mothers, to address the Provincial Ombudsperson for the protection of their human rights.

Download: HERE

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in collective centres in Bujanovac do not receive cash social assistance because SWC was rejecting their requests with an explanation that they were provided accommodation and food in collective centres and did not have to pay electricity and utility bills. In decisions rejecting the requests, SWC referred to the act of the competent Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.

Considering the particularly vulnerable position of IDPs and poor living conditions in collective centres, Praxis addressed the Ministry with the request for delivery of an instruction which had been sent to SWCs. The Ministry informed Praxis that there was no act on the manner and terms of approval of cash social assistance to IDPs living in collective centres that had been sent to SWCs.

Therefore, Praxis informed the Director of SWC Bujanovac about the need to undertake the measures that would contribute to proper application of the Law on Social Protection and enable deciding on request of IDPs in accordance with the law and within legally grounded procedure, and timely appealing against the decisions rejecting the request of internally displaced persons.