Opinions and Statements

The Protector of Citizens recommended to the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue to draft laws as soon as possible that would enable legal regulation of same-sex communities and regulation of legal ramifications of gender adjustment to improve the position of LGBTI people in Serbia.

In his recommendations, the Protector of Citizens states that this Ministry should prepare and submit to the Government of the Republic of Serbia the Proposal of the Strategy for the Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination and the accompanying Action Plan for the following period, with specific measures and activities to improve the position of LGBTI people and other vulnerable social groups.

The proposed Strategy for the Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination and the accompanying Action Plan should apply as well to vulnerable groups such as women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, persons whose health condition may be grounds for discrimination, refugees, internally displaced persons and other endangered migrant groups, national minorities and persons whose religious affiliation may be grounds for discrimination, the Protector of Citizens has recommended.

The Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue is to notify the Protector of Citizens on acting upon the recommendations within 60 days.

In the investigation to control the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy whose competencies in these fields were taken over by the newly-established Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, the Protector of Citizens has ascertained that neither same-sex communities nor the consequences of gender adjustment (change) and gender identity have been legally regulated, nor have the amendments to the Law of Inheritance been adopted in order to legally regulate the inheritance of same-sex partners, nor other measures and activities contained in the Action Plan for the implementation of the Strategy for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination, which was adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia in 2014.

Although the period for which these documents were adopted expired in 2018, the Strategy for the Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination and the accompanying Action Plan for the next period are yet to be adopted. State bodies are obliged to take all legislative, administrative and other measures to create an environment conducive to activities aimed at promotion, protection and exercise of human rights, the Protector of Citizens has pointed out.

Further to the information and videos from the media which show police officers’ conduct during the protests in the night between 7 and 8 July 2020 in front of and in the vicinity of the National Assembly, and the allegations that the excessive force was used, the Protector of Citizens launched own-initiative investigation to control the legality and regularity of MOI’s work in order to establish all facts and circumstances.

In order to ascertain all facts and circumstances, the representatives of the Secretariat of the Protector of Citizens will carry out today the following actions in the investigation:
- Unannounced visit to Belgrade City Police Administration to interview the detained persons
- Talk to the authorities and get acquainted with the relevant documentation that refers to all facts and circumstances on the night between 7 and 8 July 2020
- Pursuant to Articles 101 and 241 of the Law on Misdemeanors on the publicity of the work of courts, they will attend today's trials at the Misdemeanor Court in Belgrade
- In the following period, they will directly monitor the health condition of all injured persons

The National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) and Emergency Response Department of the Protector of Citizens will monitor in the future the police officers’ conduct on site during similar events and directly record possible work illegalities.
The Protector of Citizens reminds that the right to physical integrity and human dignity is among the fundamental human rights, which is why the Republic of Serbia is obliged to carry out the activities and measures to improve the state of affairs in this field.

The Protector of Citizens calls on the members of the Ministry of Interior to exercise police powers and coercive measures in a way that ensures full respect for the right to inviolability of mental and physical integrity and to take all available measures to prevent the occurrence of any form of violence.

While condemning all forms of violence, the Protector of Citizens also appeals to citizens, participants in all assemblies and protests in Serbia to express their views in a peaceful and dignified manner, without conflicts with officials and destruction of property. At the same time, he urges them to address the Protector of Citizens in case of violation of their Constitutionally and legally guaranteed rights.

Today, the Protector of Citizens visited the persons detained after the protest that took place on the night between 7 and 8 July in front of the National Assembly.

The team of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) and the Emergency Response Department learned that there were 23 persons and interviewed eight of them today; while the others would be interviewed at a later point as they had no longer been in the police detention premises. On that occasion, they were informed that criminal charges have been filed against one person so far, and misdemeanor charges have been filed against seven persons.

Four out of eight persons had objections to the actions of officials during the intervention, but not to the actions of police officers during transport and detention at the police station.

On Thursday, 9 July 2020, the Protector of Citizens will control the work of those officials whose conduct during the intervention had been subject of the detained persons’ complaints.

The Protector of Citizens reiterates his appeal to citizens to address this institution if they believe that their rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws have been violated.

The Protector of Citizens is the first institution that the citizens of Serbia would turn to in case their human rights were violated; this is the result of a public opinion survey “Human Rights in the Eyes of Serbia’s Citizens” conducted in November 2020.

The survey, conducted by Belgrade Center for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Team in Serbia and Ipsos Strategic Marketing, shows that as many as 26.4 percent of Serbian citizens stated that they would first address the Protector of Citizens if their human rights are jeopardized, which is a 7 per cent increase compared to previous year.

"I am pleased that the citizens have recognized the true intention and will of the Protector of Citizens to be a mainstay and support to citizens who cannot exercise their rights before the competent state bodies. This is reflected in manifold increase of citizens’ addresses to this institution during 2020", the Protector of Citizens, Zoran Pasalić stated.

Due to the pandemic, the Institution of the Protector of Citizens has had several times more work this year than in previous years, which was why we reorganized the way our Secretariat works, increased the number of own initiative investigations and intensified monitoring over citizens' rights exercise, Mr. Pasalić has said.

The Protector of Citizens would keep intensifying the control over the work of competent bodies regarding the realization of guaranteed rights of citizens, especially when it comes to vulnerable categories of the population, taking into account the altered living conditions imposed by Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Pašalić underlined.

The survey has shown that the citizens recognized the right to health, freedom of movement and media freedoms as most jeopardized rights in Serbia in 2020, the year marked by COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the fact that within its organizational structure it has established a special service for compulsory debt enforcement of utility users’ outstanding liabilities, PUC "Infostan tehnologije" established the practice of hiring law firms in order to enforce the collection of overdue receivables without any grounds in the potential need to protect the public interest (considering that the amounts of collected costs belong to lawyers, i.e. they do not represent the budget revenue of PUC "Infostan tehnologije") and at the expense of citizens' rights.

The Protector of Citizens believes that by such actions of PUC "Infostan tehnologije", citizens, as enforcement debtors of communal services, who do not meet their obligations mostly for socio-economic reasons, in addition to the costs of public enforcement officers, are additionally burdened by the costs of lawyers, resulting in a deterioration of their already economically unenviable position.

The Opinion issued by the Protector of Citizens to PUC "Infostan tehnologije" states, among other things, that in the coming period the PUC "Infostan tehnologije" should authorize the Public Attorney’s Office of the City of Belgrade for the collection of subject claims, until the situation is permanently and purposefully resolved by the city of Belgrade, in order to overcome the problem of understaffing.

The Protector of Citizens believes that the executive authorities cannot have a key and final say in restricting human rights during the pandemic and that their decision should be under parliamentary, judicial and oversight of independent institutions, said the Deputy Protector of Citizens Ms. Jelena Stojanović, on 10 December - Human Rights Day.

“In challenging circumstances - such as this lethal virus pandemic, judicial authorities, institutions and competent authorities must ensure the implementation of health measures in an environment that will not violate human rights”, said Ms. Stojanović at a conference organized by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue to mark this international day.

Ms. Stojanović stated at the meeting that the competent authorities, when adopting measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, should be guided by the rules of the profession and the situation on field with mandatory respect for human rights and close attention to vulnerable categories of citizens.

The year behind us in Serbia and all over the world had been marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and most world ombudsmen considered whether the measures taken by their states were justified in relation to the human rights restrictions that inevitably had to be imposed to save people's lives, the Deputy Protector of Citizens accentuated.

Ms. Stojanović reminded that during the state of emergency, the Protector of Citizens had redefined priorities and organization of work in order to help the most endangered ones - residents of substandard Roma settlements, shelters for foreigners, the homeless, migrants and people accommodated in temporary Covid hospitals.

The Protector of Citizens had proposed amending the regulations to enable children with autism to go for a walk without hindrance, enable a child to visit the parent with whom he/she does not live, enable movement of domestic violence victims, carers for the elderly and people with disabilities, said the Deputy Protector of Citizens.

The Protector of Citizens accepts to carry out the tasks of the Independent Monitoring Mechanism for the Implementation of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as specified in the working version of the new Law on the Protector of Citizens, drafted in this institution, the Deputy Protector of Citizens Jelena Stojanović said.

States parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are committed to establish and facilitate the functioning of such a mechanism, which should be established within a national institution operating in compliance with the UN Paris Principles on National Human Rights Institutions, said Ms. Stojanovic in the address opening the initial discussion at the UN House in Belgrade organized on the establishment of such a mechanism.

Long term experience in the field of protection and promotion of the position of persons with disabilities, the elderly, women, children, LGBTI persons, national minorities and persons deprived of liberty can positively impact the Protector of Citizens’ successful implementation of the Independent Monitoring Mechanism, said Ms. Stojanović.

Deputy Protector of Citizens Mr. Slobodan Tomić emphasized that systemic problems that prevented the exercise of persons with disabilities’ rights were still present in Serbia, and singled out as the most noticeable ones: underdeveloped accessibility of public facilities, underdeveloped system of services and support services, the practice of complete deprivation of legal capacity, poverty and social exclusion, as well as employment problems.

Mr. Tomić added that the process of developing indicators for monitoring the UN Convention implementation, i.e. adjusting existing global level indicators to the national context, was underway, and that available experiences and practices should be used in the best way in this process.

The Deputy Protector of Citizens and the head of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), Ms. Natasa Tanjević PhD, stated that this mechanism monitored all places where persons were deprived of liberty (prisons, psychiatric hospitals, police stations, social welfare residential institutions); therefore it was designated to monitor the implementation of several Articles of that UN Convention in the Model Methodology for Independent Monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Ms. Tanjević stated that the NPM already had experience in monitoring individual articles of the Convention, insight into the situation in this area and the need to improve it, adopted a methodology and developed questionnaires that would be improved pursuant to the new needs in terms of easier and broader monitoring of the Convention.

The Protector of Citizens, Zoran Pašalić, MSc. met online on 7 December 2020 with the Chairman of B&H Ombudsman, Prof. Dr. Ljubinko Mitrović.

During the meeting, the Ombudsmen shared the two institutions’ experiences regarding the exercise of human rights and freedoms during the pandemic, with special reference to the epidemiological situation in the last month when the situation in both B&H and the Republic of Serbia deteriorated sharply. During the meeting, the Ombudsmen exchanged experiences on exercising rights during the pandemic of vulnerable categories of the population, i.e. children, the elderly, people with disabilities, single parents, and the groups at-risk due to underlying conditions, autoimmune diseases and / or other health problems.

The Ombudsmen concluded that fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitutions in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia, as well as the international documents ratified by Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia, must be respected in all circumstances. On the other hand, the exercise of certain human rights may be restricted under well-defined terms.

With that in mind, three important principles should be highlighted: in the event of restricting the rights, it is necessary to determine the timeframe when the restriction applies, the justification of the restriction must be reviewed, and finally, when the causes for imposing the restrictions cease, they should be revoked. Whenever adopting, mitigating or revoking the measures to curb COVID-19, the guidelines should be the rules of the profession and the situation on field, with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, paying special attention to vulnerable categories of citizens.

The executive must not have a key and final say in restricting human rights during a pandemic, and the ombudsmen's position is that parliamentary and judicial oversight are extremely important in executive decision-making.

Judicial authorities, institutions and public authorities are bound to ensure the implementation of health measures in an environment that will not jeopardize human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The importance of further exchange of experiences and good practices in the promotion of human rights was especially emphasized at the meeting.