The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government believes that there are no reasons to amend the by-laws that hinder birth registration immediately after birth of children whose parents do not possess personal documents. Such an opinion stems from the response which the Ministry sent to Praxis upon the recently submitted appeal to amend the provisions of two by-laws (Instruction on administering registry books and forms of registry books and Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care). Praxis stated in the appeal that these by-laws were in contradiction with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Family Law and ratified international conventions, since many children are left without birth registration immediately after birth. 

The Ministry disregarded these arguments in its response, stating that the normative framework enabled every person to be registered in the birth registry books. It also stated that the problems in birth registration were overcome. However, the Ministry did not take into consideration the fact that not only would the children whose parents do not possess documents not be able to get registered in the birth registry book immediately after birth, but also that additional, often lengthy procedures would have to be conducted for them.

In this way, the Ministry disregarded the opinions of many international organizations and treaty bodies which emphasised in their recommendations to Serbia that the children whose parents do not possess documents must be enabled to register in the birth registry books immediately after birth. Furthermore, the Ministry also neglected its obligation stemming from the Operational conclusions from the seminar “Social Inclusion of Roma in the Republic of Serbia 2017”  to ensure the fulfilment of the right to report and register births of children whose parent do not possess personal documents.