The Constitutional Court has dismissed Praxis initiative for the assessment of the constitutionality of the Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure, submitted in June 2014.

Specifically, Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure stipulated that “the representative of an individual must be an attorney-at-law, a close relative, brother, sister or a spouse, or the representative of the legal aid service in the local self-governance who is a graduate lawyer with the bar exam.

With this, the legislator imposed limitations that are early and disproportional limitation of the right to the access to court for certain groups of people. These limitations affect the very essence of the right to access to court. The stated limitations are not either necessary or legitimate or proportional and they are in contradiction with the Article 20 of the Constitution, and thus question the exercise of the right to equal protection of the right before the court from the Article 36, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution for whole groups of people, such as legally invisible persons, single people and common-law partners who cannot represent each other.

In the decision from 2013, the Constitutional Court, assessing the constitutionality of the previous Article 85 of the Law on Civil Procedure (by which lawyer monopoly was established) took the view that there is no constitutional ground for prescribing restrictions in regard to who may be the party’s proxy in the civil procedure. 

The Constitutional Court, in its latest decision, rejecting the Praxis initiative, actually departed from its view which it had taken in regard to the same issue in its decision from 2013.

However, in the explanation of the decision, the Constitutional Court noted the problems pointed at by Praxis in its initiative, but it described such problems as legal gaps that need to be filled in in the procedure of implementation of the law.

These views of the Constitutional Court will not contribute to exercise of the right to access to court in a manner prescribed by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of Serbia.

Jelena Petrović, Coordinator of Child Rights Programme in Praxis, said for Politika Daily that Roma children are still facing a series of problems in access to the right to education, even though inclusion has been a legal obligation for years. She reminded that children from informal settlement, who do not have an “official” address, face special difficulties, particularly the children who are not registered in birth registry books. Therefore, it is not possible to send to the parents a call to enroll their children in the preparatory school programme or the first grade. Affected by poverty, Roma children do not have even basic living conditions, which makes their education more difficult, and they are recognized as one of the most discriminated groups in the field of education. Also, practice has shown that discrimination often comes from the teaching staff.

Read the statement in Politika Daily.

The Constitutional Court has dismissed Praxis initiative for the assessment of the constitutionality of the Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure, submitted in June 2014.

Specifically, Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure stipulated that “the representative of an individual must be an attorney-at-law, a close relative, brother, sister or a spouse, or the representative of the legal aid service in the local self-governance who is a graduate lawyer with the bar exam.

With this, the legislator imposed limitations that are early and disproportional limitation of the right to the access to court for certain groups of people. These limitations affect the very essence of the right to access to court. The stated limitations are not either necessary or legitimate or proportional and they are in contradiction with the Article 20 of the Constitution, and thus question the exercise of the right to equal protection of the right before the court from the Article 36, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution for whole groups of people, such as legally invisible persons, single people and common-law partners who cannot represent each other.

In the decision from 2013, the Constitutional Court, assessing the constitutionality of the previous Article 85 of the Law on Civil Procedure (by which lawyer monopoly was established) took the view that there is no constitutional ground for prescribing restrictions in regard to who may be the party’s proxy in the civil procedure. 

The Constitutional Court, in its latest decision, rejecting the Praxis initiative, actually departed from its view which it had taken in regard to the same issue in its decision from 2013.

However, in the explanation of the decision, the Constitutional Court noted the problems pointed at by Praxis in its initiative, but it described such problems as legal gaps that need to be filled in in the procedure of implementation of the law.

These views of the Constitutional Court will not contribute to exercise of the right to access to court in a manner prescribed by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of Serbia.

In the period from 3-6 November 2014, the third training on migration and international human rights law was held in Arandjelovac in the organization of OSCE, Group 484 and International Commission of Jurists. The representatives of Praxis took part in the training, in addition to many representatives of non-governmental sector from the country and the region and representatives of state institutions.

The training included the following subjects: entry and stay of migrants, concept of international protection: refugee status, temporary, complementary and discretionary protection, well-founded fear of persecution, exclusion clauses and the principle of "non refoulement", the detention of migrants and unaccompanied minors. Each subject was covered through the lecture of Massimo Frigo from the International Commission of Jurists, and the exercise with a view to the practical application of international and EU regulations.

During the lecture on well-founded fear of prosecution as a necessary condition for obtaining refugee status, it was emphasized that the subjective feeling of the asylum seeker and his/her arguments for the presence of a "reasonable fear" are taken into account when assessing his/her application for asylum. In addition, it is irrelevant whether an asylum seeker really belongs to a particular group for which he/she may be persecuted, but whether the persecutor is considered to belong to this social group.

The question of detention is particularly important from the aspect of principles governing the detention, and the right guaranteed to detainees. Every arrested person must be informed at the time of his/her arrest about the reasons for his/her arrest and any charge brought against him/her, because no one may be arbitrarily arrested or detained. During the lecture, Massimo Frigo also pointed at the problematic article 15 of the EU Directive on return (2008/115/EC), which provides for the authorization of a member state that, unless in a particular case when it cannot apply some other effective but less coercive measures, it may keep in detention a third-country national who is the subject of the return procedure in order to prepare the return and/or implement a process of expulsion, especially when there is a risk that the person will escape or slows down the process of preparation of return or expulsion.

The training was complete with the lecture of Milena Petrovic form UNHCR in Serbia about UNHCR guidelines on the treatment of unaccompanied minors. According to the basic principles, an unaccompanied minor should not be denied an access to the territory, but it is necessary to establish whether a child is separated from parents or unaccompanied or an asylum seekers, and it is necessary to appoint a guardian or a councellor who is responsible and competent to represent the best interests of a child, a legal representative and to adjust communication to the age. The applications for asylum status submitted by unaccompanied minors are a priority. The permanent solution may be local integration or resettlement to the third country in order to connect families. The solution for those who do not meet criteria is the return while detention of minors may be the last possible measure with an indication to be determined in the shortest period of time.

In the end it was once again confirmed, as in the case of adult asylum seekers in Serbia, not only that there is little accommodation capacities but also those that exist are not in accordance with the needs of accommodation of unaccompanied minors.

* All terms used in the masculine grammatical gender shall include the male and female individuals to which they relate.

The Appeals Commission of the Press Council has established that Daily Informer and Portal Telegraf have violated the Code of Ethics of Journalists by calling the Albanians “Shiptars”.

During October 2014, Daily Informer and Portal Telegraf published a series of texts in which the Albanians were pejoratively called “Shiptars”. On that occasion, Praxis and 13 other non-governmental organizations filed an appeal to the Press Council, stating that such way of reporting is inadmissible and that pejorative and colloquial naming of certain group in media is not in accordance with the Code of Ethics of  Serbian Journalists.

The Appeals Commission of the Press Council has adopted the appeal and reached the decision that Daily Informer and Portal Telegraf have violated the Code of Ethics of Serbian Journalists, precisely the Item 1 of the Chapter IV, according to which a journalist shall oppose all those who violate human rights or who advocate any kind of discrimination, hate speech or incitement to violence, and Item 4 of the Chapter V according to which a journalist must be aware of the danger of discrimination that can be spread by media and shall do everything to avoid discrimination.

Press Council has established that it is undisputable that Albanians, or at least a part of them, take the word “Shiptar” as an insult, which should be enough for media to avoid using such word. The guidelines from the Code of Ethics of Serbian Journalists specify that it is “inadmissibly colloquial, derogatory and imprecise labelling of certain group”, in this case members of the nation whose official name in Serbia is the Albanians. Also, the Commission assessed that context in which the name was used is very important in this case. The media job is to inform and not to additionally raise tensions, this time caused by the incident that occurred at the football match between Serbia and Albania and comments related to that event, and thus insisting on the use of disputed term while reporting on that event is particularly unacceptable.

Praxis welcomes the decision of the Press Council and draws the attention of media that the use of term “Shiptar”, but all other pejorative and derogatory labels for certain social groups, is not in accordance with the Code of Ethics of Serbian Journalists and that they should not be used.

The appeal has been filed by:

Humanitarian Law Centre
Foundation for New Communications Dokukino
Civic Initiatives
Indigo, Nis
Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights - YUCOM
The Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia - CHRIS
Novi Sad Humanitarian Centre
Human Rights Committee Leskovac
Praxis
Regional Centre for Minorities
Sanzak Committee for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms
Association "Eco Family", Novi Pazar
Association of Professionals for Children and Family Support “FICE Serbia”
Western Balkans Institute, Belgrade
 
More information about the procedure can be found at the website of Press Council.
Download the documents (Serbian only):
Appeal to the Press Council
Decision of the Press Council_Informer
Decision of the Press Councilu_Telegraf

See the media coverage at N1.

Sabine Llewellyn, a French journalist, wrote an article about two of Praxis' actions after talking to Cerim Gasi, a representative of internally displaced persons from Kosovo, and Bojana Balevic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence Coordinator in Praxis.

Read the whole article here.

Download: HERE

 Download: HERE

Download: HERE 

Download: HERE