Praxis prepared the report “Permanent Residence Registration For Marginalised Citizens – Law and Practice” which was produced as part of the RomaBelong project coordinated by the European Network on Statelessness. The project seeks to address statelessness and access to documents for Roma in the Western Balkans region. The work is supported in part by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute in cooperation with the Europe and Eurasia Program of the Open Society Foundations. 

For more than 15 years, Praxis has been providing free legal assistance to persons at risk of statelessness, persons who are not registered in civil registry books and do not have confirmed citizenship, as well as citizens who face difficulties with registering their permanent residence. Although the number of people who are not registered in birth registry books and who do not have citizenship has gradually decreased over the years, the problems related to the registration of permanent residence have not decreased and some of them have even intensified recently. 

This report is based on the rich experience that Praxis has gained by providing free legal assistance in the procedures of permanent residence registration. It presents the basic rules of permanent residence registration procedure, the importance of permanent residence registration, the most common problems encountered in practice by members of vulnerable groups (primarily Roma), as well as some of the recommendations of international bodies and national independent bodies for solving the problems related to permanent residence registration. 

You can download the report HERE.