The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (Yucom) said in a report released on Tuesday that Serbian citizens over the age of 65 were discriminated during the state of emergency imposed at the start of coronavirus pandemic.

“You cannot choose which part of the legal system you want to respect”

The Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) based in Belgrade, Katarina Golubović, explains that the restriction of movement is not in itself unconstitutional, but that it can become if it is assessed that it was imposed in such a way that it threatens the so-called absolute rights.

Serbian NGO Lawyers’ Committee For Human Rights (YUCOM) say they have also received similar reports.

“In a state of emergency it is possible to restrict individual human rights, however, if citizens are not adequately informed about their rights and obligations, we have a serious threat to the right to legal certainty,” Milena Vasic of YUCOM told KRIK.

For years, Mirjana Novokmet has tried to find out what happened to her first child back in 1978.

Novokmet, only 19-years-old at the time, was told at a Belgrade clinic that her baby boy was stillborn. She wasn’t allowed to see him, and she has not been able to determine with certainty why he died or where he is buried.

Serbian lawmakers have adopted a long-awaited law they say will shed light on the mystery of hundreds of missing babies more than 30 years ago, and offer compensation to parents where the fate of their child cannot be determined.

In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of Serbian babies (some advocates say thousands) mysteriously vanished from hospitals and birth clinics with no explanation or proof of death.

While the debate on changes to the penal code focuses on the emotive issue of life sentences for child killers, the authorities are busy smuggling in a raft of other changes that will seriously limit the liberty of Serbia’s courts.

Two Serbian Radical Party politicians are refusing to travel to The Hague to face contempt-of-court proceedings after the UN court revoked its decision to allow a trial in Belgrade because witnesses said they feared for their safety.

A report from Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office reveals that over the past two years, it has mainly focused on smaller-scale crimes that were not committed by high-ranking officials, contrary to what the Belgrade authorities promised the EU.

Civil society groups in Serbia say that the process of selecting a new Information Commissioner, a post crucial for obtaining information of public importance, is not nearly as transparent as it should be.

Serbia has drawn criticism for sentencing three Albanians who wrote the Kosovo Liberation Army’s initials on snow-covered cars to 55 days in prison.

Human rights activists have criticised as excessive the 55-day sentences handed down to three ethnic Albanians by the Belgrade Misdemeanours Court for drawing the Kosovo Liberation Army’s initials in snow on several automobiles in the Serbian capital.