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

With the support of UNHCR and UNDP, on 10 December 2009, at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, a joint session of the Poverty Reduction Committee, the Committee for Labour, Veterans and Social Affairs and the Committee  for International Relations was held in form of a public hearing on the issue of “Statelessness and Poverty in Serbia“. Within the introduction, the participants were addressed by: Ms. Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Eduardo Arboleda, UNHCR Representative in Serbia, Mr. Sasa Gajin, representative of the Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Ms. Ivanka Kostic, Executive Director of Praxis.

At the beginning of the joint session the participants were addressed by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Prof. Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic. In her statement, the Speaker emphasized that the problem of statelessness was usually mentioned as part of the access to human and minority rights issue. She stressed that today’s gathering demonstrated the determination of the National Assembly to address this problem in an all-inclusive manner. Statistics show that at least 17,000 persons in Serbia have no citizenship, the majority being the “legally invisible” persons of Roma nationality who live on the social margins and face problems in exercising their civil rights. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia guarantees access to human rights, as well as the right to legal person. The National Assembly ratified many international and regional agreements within the field of human rights, passed the Law on National Minority Councils and the Law against Discrimination, all indicating a determination in seeking a systemic solution for the problem of statelessness. She presented the advocacy activities conducted by international agencies and non-governmental organizations for the adoption of the Law on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law and invited all members of the Assembly and members of the executive authorities to jointly find a systemic solution for the “legally invisible” persons. The Speaker expressed her gratitude to the international organizations for the expert support that they provide to the institutions in Serbia and emphasized that the National Assembly would do all within its power for these persons to access their rights.

The UNHCR Representative in Serbia, Mr. Eduardo Arboleda suggested simple and concrete measures which could be implemented by the Assembly with the aim of preventing statelessness and poverty. First of all, he stressed the importance of the signing of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the importance of the legislative amendments which would create mechanisms for an easier identification of stateless persons and the reduction of statelessness, emphasising the positive experience of other countries. He also invited members of the Assembly and members of the executive authority to support the systemic changes by adopting the suggested Law on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law and the new Law on Permanent and Temporary Residence. Finally, UNHCR activities in Serbia were presented, as well as a film which was made during the implementation of the Project “Social Inclusion and Access to Human Rights for Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian Communities in the Western Balkans”.

The Chairman of the International Relations Committee, Mr. Miletic Mihajlovic, said that statelessness also presented a problem for the access to rights of national minorities and expressed the Committee’s full support in resolving this issue.

The Chairman of the Committee for Labour, Veterans and Social Affairs, Mr. Meho Omerovic, stated that the Committee would, within its authority and through the competent Ministry, work on amending the current laws, in order to achieve bearable living conditions for such persons. He announced that a new Law on Social Protection would be passed, which would define provision of urgent response measures to stateless persons until they acquire citizenship, enabling them to exercise other measures of protection provided by the state. 

Ms. Ivanka Kostic, Executive Director of Praxis and Mr. Sasa Gajin from the Center for Advanced Legal Studies made a brief presentation of the problems encountered in practice, activities of the non-governmental sector, suggested solutions in the Model Law on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law and current attempts to draw attention of the competent ministries to the problem of the “legally invisible” persons.  They expressed their concern regarding the absence of the representatives of the Ministry for Public Administration and Local Self-Government, who persistently evade attending meetings aimed at finding solutions for problems faced by the persons who are not recognized before the law.

Apart from the representatives of the Assembly, the public hearing was attended by representatives of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Office of the National Security Council, the non-governmental sector and international organizations. During the discussion it was emphasized that there were no adequate mechanisms for protection of persons without citizenship, especially mechanisms for their identification, that statelessness was related to problems of poverty and crime, which could be issues of national and regional security, and that the problem should be solved proactively and not repressively. The issues of readmission and visa liberalization were also discussed in relation to statelessness, as well as the cooperation of the non-governmental sector, international organizations and competent ministries. 

At the end of the discussion, the Chairman of the Poverty Reduction Committee, Ms. Snezana Stojanovic-Plavsic summed up the results of the discussion and concluded that all of the participants agreed that there were no political and legal obstacles for the adoption of the Law on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law which would systemically solve this problem, and assessed that partnership of all actors is of great importance in the process of adopting such an important law.