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