The Centre for Advanced Legal Studies, AIRE Centre from London, and Praxis organized a seminar entitled “Prohibition of Discrimination of the Roma and the Problem of Legally Invisible Person” on 14 December 2010 in Media Centre, Belgrade.
According to available data, the Roma in Serbia fall into one of the population groups most exposed to discriminatory treatment. Among the Roma themselves, the residents of so called “informal settlements” are in the most difficult position by far, and among them there is a high number of people often referred to as “legally invisible persons.” Legally invisible are those who are not registered in birth registry books and do not possess personal documents, due to which they are, as a rule, deprived of enjoyment of all other rights guaranteed by international documents and national legislation.
Even though the 2006 Constitution of the Republic of Serbia explicitly guarantees every human being the right to recognition before the law, the legally invisible persons in Serbia have been denied the status of legal subjects for years. Thus, they are socially excluded, without the possibility to enjoy rights in the areas of health protection, social security, education, as well as other rights and freedoms guaranteed to other citizens of the State. Besides, a significant number of members of this population group lives in severe poverty, in utterly unfavourable living conditions, in informal settlements without running water, sewage system and electricity, in which the representatives of public utility services do not enter. The State has so far neither expressed significant concern for the position of this population group, nor has it taken all the measures it is obliged to in order to resolve their problems. Through this negative political practice a large number of members of Roma community has, thus, been turned into second-class citizens – residents of a country whose citizens they are, but who do not enjoy the same level of protection of rights and freedoms as other citizens.
Serbia has been warned about this negative practice of social exclusion and deprivation of fundamental rights year after year by international organizations, primarily UN agencies, Council of Europe, OSCE and the European Union. For the second year in a row, in its Serbia Progress Report, the European Commission has been drawing attention of the competent bodies to the fact that further progress of the State towards the EU will not be possible without solving this problem.
The seminar “Prohibition of Discrimination of the Roma and the Problem of Legally Invisible Person” was organized with the aim to contributing to a change of political practice in the State and facing with a problem that is being constantly ignored. It was organized for representatives of Roma organizations, activists of non-governmental sector, journalists and representatives of public authorities.
At the seminar, Ivanka Kostic, Praxis Executive Director, presented the position of the “legally invisible” persons in Serbia through examples Praxis had come across in its work, i.e. through a Praxis publication about the position of these persons. Mr Cerim Gasi, Praxis associate in the field and representative of Roma community, spoke about living conditions in the Roma settlements from the perspective of their residents.
Afterwards, Mr Luke Clements from AIRE Centre, London, presented court practice, that is, the most important decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which refer to discrimination of the Roma and the problem of informal settlements. Mr Sasa Gajin, Ph.D, from the Centre for Advanced Legal Studies, Belgrade, spoke about a proposition for a future legal framework for solving the problem of “legally invisible” persons in Serbia and presented the Bill on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law.
Download: Bill on the Procedure for Recognition of Persons before the Law
