After the adoption of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure providing a possibility for persons who cannot prove the fact of their birth in the administrative procedure to exercise the right to registration in birth registries through a non-contentious procedure, some bodies started denying their competence in conducting procedures for subsequent birth registration. Even though the court procedure has been envisaged as subsidiary to the administrative procedure, where the exercise of the right to be recognised as a person before the law can be sought only by persons who cannot prove date and place of their birth based on regulations specifying the administering of birth registries, some administrative bodies started informing the applicants that they were no longer competent  for proceeding in such cases after the adoption of the amendments of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure, without even considering the details of concrete requests for subsequent registration and enclosed evidence. For instance, the administrative bodies of Vozdovac and Kraljevo informed verbally the clients’ proxies that they could not conduct the procedures of subsequent birth registration anymore since the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure had been amended. In addition, the administrative body in Vranje returned the requests to the applicant with the information that subsequent birth registration was in the competence of the court.

After the intervention of Praxis’ lawyers, the stated bodies accepted the competence for proceeding, but it is, however, worrying that administrative bodies avoid conducting procedures they are bound to in accordance with the law, irrespective of whether they are doing it for the lack of regulations, avoidance of responsibility or laziness.