An updated and expanded country profile on Serbia as part of the Statelessness Index has been launched today. The Serbia page now includes up-to-date data on new categories like withdrawal of nationality, reduction of statelessness, and bilateral return and readmission agreements, as well as a shorter country briefing in English and Serbian, which outline recommendations for the Government on how to improve the treatment of stateless people and to prevent and reduce statelessness (also attached to this email).

The Index country profile on Serbia provides analysis for over 25 different categories. Law, policy and practice under each of these categories are assessed against international norms and good practice and marked with a clear and easy to understand assessment key. 

MAIN 2019 INDEX UPDATES

Serbia saw some positive legislative developments in 2018, but the update also highlights some continuing concerns with implementation in practice. 

In March 2018, Serbia adopted a new Law on Foreigners, which established a definition of a stateless person and introduces provisions on detention and return procedures that could improve the situation of some stateless people. Detention may now only be ordered after considering less coercive measures; removal can be postponed and access to basic rights granted if someone’s identity can’t be determined (through no fault of their own); and temporary residence can be granted on humanitarian grounds if removal is postponed for over a year. As a result, the assessment of Serbia’s performance in the Detention theme has slightly improved. 

However, there is also a provision in the new law that presumes that if someone can’t establish their identity or doesn’t have a travel document, they are obstructing removal, which undermines some of these positive changes. The Index update also shows that work remains to be done to bring Serbian law, policy and practice on the protection of stateless people and prevention and reduction of statelessness in line with international standards: Serbia still has no statelessness determination procedure; bylaws requiring parents to be documented to register births remain in force; and safeguards to prevent children being born stateless in the country are undermined by implementation gaps. 

ABOUT THE STATELESSNESS INDEX

The Statelessness Index is an online tool that assesses how countries in Europe protect stateless people and what they are doing to prevent and reduce statelessness. It is the first to provide comprehensive and accessible comparative analysis for 18 countries in Europe, including Serbia. It allows users to quickly understand which areas of law, policy and practice can be improved by states.

The Index was developed by the European Network on Statelessness (ENS), in partnership with Praxis. It is an invaluable tool for sharing good practice and raising awareness of issues that affect stateless people. 

We look forward to working with key stakeholders to facilitate the change needed to improve the lives of stateless men, women and children living in Serbia. 

In February 2019, Praxis continued providing assistance to refugees/migrants, through information, psychosocial support, referrals to the targeted assistance provided by various organisations/institutions or covering the costs of transport to the asylum and reception centres.

A total of 517 newly arrived refugees/migrants were informed about current situation in Serbia and the region, legal status and available legal options (seeking asylum in Serbia, assisted voluntary return to the country of origin, possibilities of family reunification abroad or resettlement to a third country when possible), accommodation in asylum centres (AC) or transit-reception centres in Serbia, means of transportation to the assigned centres, other rights and available services (medical care, psychosocial support, food, NFIs, various workshops for refugees/ migrants etc).

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report for February 2019 here.

The Anti-Discrimination Coalition and partner organizations demand from the competent authorities to withdraw from the adoption procedure the proposed Amending Act on the Anti-discrimination Law because representatives of vulnerable and discriminated groups, as well as the general public, had no opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed legal solutions. The text of the draft Act has an extremely large number of shortcomings; therefore, it is necessary to postpone its adoption and enable all stakeholders to provide their respective feedback.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia has recently prepared a proposed Amending Act on the Anti-discrimination Law. Contrary to the legal rules governing the drafting and adoption procedure of draft laws, the parties interested in the content of the Act were not allowed to participate in its drafting, nor was a public discussion on the proposed solutions held before the Government formally adopted them. This is also stated in item 9. Analysis of the effects of the Act that was submitted to the National Assembly along with the proposed Amending Act.

The lack of a wide debate on the new legal solutions directly prevented interested parties from making a constructive contribution to the quality of the proposed Act, and above all,  from contributing to the elimination of its numerous shortcomings, which can be divided into four different groups.

The first group consists of shortcomings which are linguistically meaningless or impossible linguistic structures, but also of spelling mistakes. For example, the text uses the word "doesnotjustify" (translator’s note: the whole phrase is written as one word) and states that "harassment...which is aimed at or constitutes a violation of dignity... is forbidden" (translator’s note: in the original, an impossible language structure is used). 

The second group of shortcomings indicates that the amendments are not proposed in accordance with the law drafting rules. For example, in a contradictory manner, the act authorizes the Commissioner to process names and other personal data of the parties in the ongoing court discrimination-related proceedings, but at the same time imposes the obligation to anonymize those data before the submission of the court judgments to the Commissioner.

The third group consists of legal and systemic shortcomings that prevent the adequate implementation of the Act, such as deleting general procedural guarantees pertaining to the complaint proceedings, thus jeopardizing the rights of the parties in the proceedings and paving the way for arbitrary decision-making on the part of the Commissioner. 

Finally, the fourth group of shortcomings are of legal and political nature and cast doubt on the actual intent of the author of the proposed amendments, such as the authorization of the Commissioner to decide not to act upon a complaint if he/she finds that the purpose of the proceedings can be achieved by issuing a public warning, or the introduction of misdemeanor fines ten times higher than the currently prescribed ones, without any reasoning behind it.

Since the number of these shortcomings exceeds the number of proposed amendments, and especially taking into account the fact that their adoption would significantly aggravate the status of the parties concerned with this Act, we consider it necessary to withdraw the proposed Act for adoption without any delay, and then enable all interested parties to participate in the improvement of the legal text at hand.

The Anti-Discrimination Coalition consists of the Center for the Advancement of Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, Labris -Organization for Lesbian Human Rights, the Network of Human Rights Committees (CHRIS Network), the Association of Disabled Students, Gayten LGBT, Praxis and the Equality.

The list of organisations supporting the initiative can be downloaded here.

At the initiative of UNICEF and the Coordination Body for Gender Equality, the National Coalition to End Child Marriage was established with the aim of contributing to ending child marriages in Serbia by eliminating institutional and social barriers to law enforcement and promoting good practice of partnership between local communities, the media, non-governmental, governmental and private sectors. At the same time, the Coalition should work on safe choice options for Roma girls and on empowering Roma boys and girls to change the existing harmful practices.

The first founding meeting of the Coalition was held on 21 February 2019 in the building of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. On this occasion, UNICEF Representative in Serbia Regina De Dominicis pointed out that early and child marriages constituted a serious violation of the rights of girls, who were more at risk from this phenomenon.

"The story of every early married girl I met is full of pain and regret. Tradition is not harmful in itself, but the question is how society perceives this tradition and how it stimulates stereotypes. One of the most important aspects of child protection is precisely prevention of child marriages", said De Dominicis.

Assistant Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Jovana Atanacković, noted that marriage before the age of 18 was a serious violation of human rights and affected the girls' right to health, education and life without violence.

"Therefore, we are establishing the National Coalition in order to contribute, through our joint efforts, to creating intervention models, empowering young Roma women to get educated, strengthening local Roma communities and establishing better coordination at all levels in order to eradicate child marriages," said Atanacković.

Silvija Nešić, a representative of NGO Ternipe, stressed that no Roma woman had a future without support.

"Therefore, UNICEF's support is extremely important for us, Roma organisations. Support and cooperation are the only way of fighting", said Silvija.

The Coalition represents a community of individuals, institutions and organisations, including representatives of the Coordination Body for Gender Equality, UNICEF, the Office for Human and Minority Rights, the Administrative Districts of Nišava, Jablanica and South Banat, the Committee on Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality and the Committee on the Rights of the Child of the National Assembly. The members of the Coalition are also representatives of the Protector of Citizens, the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, the City of Belgrade, civil society organisations Bibija, Ternipe, Praxis, Indigo, the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Team, the Roma Inclusion Office, the Association of Roma Novi Bečej, the Republic Institute for Social Protection and UN agencies.

Throughout December 2018 and January 2019, Praxis continued providing assistance to refugees/migrants, through information, psychosocial support, referrals to the targeted assistance provided by various organisations/institutions or covering the costs of transport to the asylum and reception centres.

A total of 1352 newly arrived refugees/migrants were informed about current situation in Serbia and the region, legal status and available legal options (seeking asylum in Serbia, assisted voluntary return to the country of origin, possibilities of family reunification abroad or resettlement to a third country when possible), accommodation in asylum centres (AC) or transit-reception centres in Serbia, means of transportation to the assigned centres, other rights and available services (medical care, psychosocial support, food, NFIs, various workshops for refugees/ migrants etc).

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report for December 2018 here.

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report for January 2019 here.

On 12 February 2019, the study Equality in Practice - Implementing Serbia’s Equality Laws was presented in the Media Centre in Belgrade as one of the results of the two-year project entitled Improving the Equality Legal and Policy Framework in Serbia and Monitoring Implementation of Equality Norms and Policies, implemented by partner organisations: Praxis, London-based organisation Equal Rights Trust and Sandžak Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, with the support of the European Union.

The study was prepared by the Equal Rights Trust in cooperation with two professional consultants: Prof. Nevena Petrušić, PhD and Lawyer Kosana Beker.

The study addresses the issue of continuous discrimination in Serbia, analyses the exiting legal and political framework and assesses its effectiveness in practice.   In the absence of similar study, the aim of this comprehensive study is to serve as a key reference point and evidence base for all those who work on combating discrimination and promoting fundamental human rights and freedoms. On the other hand, the study aims to influence the government and the judicial system with its own authority and to serve as an effective tool in advocating for improving the efficiency of the anti-discriminatory framework.

The study is based on extensive research conducted over 12-month period including: field research conducted by civil society organisations in different regions of Serbia; focus groups with survivors of discrimination, lawyers and civil society organisations in Niš, Belgrade, Novi Pazar, Pančevo and Vranje; over 55 one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders including lawyers, government and private sector representatives.  In addition, the study includes the analysis and assessment of the compliance of Serbia’s anti-discrimination framework with the country’s international and regional obligations, and the analyses of the extent to which Serbia has adopted the practical measures that are necessary to ensure that its equality laws provide protection in practice.

The findings contained in this study raise serious questions about the efficiency of legislation in practice and indicate that there are areas in which the legislative framework does not ensure international best practice, despite the undisputed progress achieved by Serbia in the past decade in improving conditions and opportunities for exercising the right to equality through the adoption of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination and the establishment of an independent body for the protection of equality. The study has revealed a widespread lack of awareness of the existence of anti-discrimination legal framework both among potential victims of discrimination and among public authorities and institutions, and has shown that individuals are unable or unwilling to seek legal redress due to the cost of proceedings and a lack of confidence in the judiciary as an efficient and independent form of redress.

The study provides recommendations that are also priorities that should be addressed in the future in order to improve the efficiency of the Serbia’s existing anti-discrimination legal and political framework in practice.

Joanna Whiteman from the Equal Rights Trust and Lawyer Kosana Beker spoke about the experience of conducting research for the study, the content of the study and expectations regarding its impact on improving the efficiency of protection against discrimination in Serbia. The current challenges from the aspect of various vulnerable groups were presented by civil society representatives who were also members of the Working Group established to provide expert support for the study:  Dijana Malbaša, Autonomous Women’s Centre; Osman Balić, League of Roma; Milan Đurić, Gayten-LGBT; Vladimir Petronijević, Grupa 484; Lazar Stefanović, Mental Disability Rights Initiative.

Study is available in Serbian  and English.

See ERT's statement here.

Media coverage:
Romano Them