Serbia: Civil society calls for a ministry for human rights

Serbian civil society organisation, the Centre for Development of Civil Society, is concerned that instead of creating a Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, such issues will be dealt with by the Ministry of Justice. According to the CDCS such a solution would be harmful to the nation.

CDCS reminds that Serbia has not yet met its obligations listed in the Second European Partnership, failing to adopt the general anti-discrimination legislation and the Law on Election and Competences of National Councils of National Minorities.

“If we had a Ministry of Human and Minority rights in the past two years, we would have adopted these laws so far and would have met those obligations”, says Vladimir Ilic, CDCS Executive Director.

CDCS warns that the situation in the area of minority rights protection has not reached such a level of development as to leave the management of potential crisis to an institution like the Ministry of Justice, which is rather inert and slow to act because of the very nature of its main field of activities.

Past experiences from times of frequent ethnically motivated incidents (as those that took place in 2003-2005) demonstrate the need for a separate Ministry on Human and Minority Rights.

CDCS believes that the Ministry of Justice lacks the capacity to provide adequate protection of minority rights and fight the problems of discrimination of people with different faith, disabilities, homophobia or rising neo-Nazi violence.

“Giving up on the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights at this time means that all action will continue through adoption of by-laws and decrees, instead of laws, which is not a good example of institutional capacity building and governing practices”, adds Ilic.