Centre for Youth Integration and Praxis have launched the Initiative for Resolving the Issue of “Legally Invisible” Persons, supported by 125 civil society organizations, requesting from the Government of Serbia to, without delay and on the basis of the solutions offered in the Model Law, determine the Bill on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law and table it urgently before the National Assembly for adoption.

The Model Law on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law , created over two years ago by  the Centre for Advanced Legal Studies in cooperation with Praxis and with the support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which offers an efficient and simplified procedure for subsequent registration into birth registry books, has not been adopted yet. At the same time, there has been no adequate legal reaction in terms of adopting amendments to the existing laws in this field, which are in practice imprecise and incomplete.

Right to be recognized as a person before the law is one of the basic human rights granted by the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and by numerous international documents which Serbia ratified. The right of a person to be recognized as a person before the law is a basis for exercising all other rights, while its deprivation has serious consequences on life of each individual. Persons who are not registered in the birth registry books find themselves outside the system of health care, social welfare and employment, they are socially excluded and exposed to various forms of discrimination. There is more than 2,000 “legally invisible” persons residing in Serbia, including a large number of children. Number of “legally invisible” persons is increasing day by day.

Despite the efforts of the civil society to draw attention of the State to the need of urgent resolution of this issue, the authorized State institutions remain without an adequate response. In order to resolve this issue, it is necessary to urgently adopt a separate law which would resolve the problem of subsequent registration of the fact of birth into birth registry books.

For the second year in a row, the need of resolving the issue of legally invisible persons has been pointed out by the European Commission in its Serbia Progress Report. Serbia has also been warned for many years about the hard position and social exclusion of these persons by other international organizations, primarily UN bodies, Council of Europe and the OSCE.

Read the article published in daily newspaper Blic

Download: Initiative for Resolving the Issue of "Legally Invisible" Persons

               Model Law - The Bill of the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law