As part of the project "Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness", financed by UNHCR, Praxis published a report entitled "Determining the Date and Place of Birth, Right to Citizenship and Permanent Residence Registration - Analysis of Remaining Obstacles". The report analyses the regulations and practice of the competent authorities in the procedures for the registration of the facts of birth and citizenship into civil registry books, and the procedures of permanent residence registration and ID card issuance. 

The report assesses that the progress achieved over the past several years has been followed by stagnation in exercising the right to registration into birth registry books and preventing statelessness. It highlights that there are still legal obstacles that lead to the emergence of new legally invisible persons and there are still problems in practice that make the procedures of birth registration, citizenship acquisition and permanent residence registration much longer and much more complicated than they should be. The report particularly stresses that Serbia has still not fulfilled its obligations undertaken by ratifying international conventions, and consequently, children whose mothers do not possess personal documents cannot be registered at birth. Moreover, the fact that mothers do not possess personal documents is often an obstacle in other procedures for exercising the children’s status rights, which significantly impedes or completely prevents the conducting of procedures.

The report also presents other systemic deficiencies that aggravate the situation of persons at risk of statelessness, such as the fact that the law on free legal aid has not been passed yet and that in many cases the administrative authorities still fail to respect the obligation of obtaining evidence ex officio. 

 Download the report here.