Because of unlawful proceeding of an officer of the Police Station in Bujanovac, Praxis client N.R. was not able to register permanent residence for months.

At the end of 2014, N.R. moved from Belgrade to Bujanovac where she entered into a common-law marriage. Accordingly, she addressed the Police with a request to register permanent residence at the address of her common-law spouse. Even though the application of the legal possibility of residence registration is indisputable in this case, the Police rejected her request verbally, asking her to falsely register permanent residence in Bujanovac as a lessee of an apartment.

Since the Police constantly rejected the request of N.R. verbally, she used the possibility to submit the request to the competent body via post. Proceeding upon the request, the Police Station in Bujanovac performed a field check and invited N.R. to give a statement related to her request, but did not take any further actions in the procedure. Only after Praxis pointed to the unlawful proceeding of the Police Station in Bujanovac in this case at the training for registrars, deputy registrars, social workers and police officers of the administrative regions of Pirot, Jablanica and Pcinja, held on 12 June 2015 in Pirot, and after additional consultations between the competent police officer and Praxis, did the Police Station in Bujanovac finally approve the registration of permanent residence to N.R.

What is worrying is the fact that, instead of promoting the rights guaranteed by the law by applying the regulations, the competent body actually tended to diminish them.