State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice Radomir Ilić presented at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on March 5 the Law on Determining the Facts Concerning the Status of New-Borns Suspected to Have Disappeared from the Maternity Wards in the Republic of Serbia, adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on February 29, 2020. He informed about further steps that Serbia will take to fully comply with the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights "Zorica Jovanovic v. Serbia". The Action Plan provides for the Government of Serbia to ensure that the investigatory mechanism operates smoothly in Convention compliant fashion, as well as to continue intensive cooperation with the Council of Europe in this process.
The decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, adopted on March 5, expressed great satisfaction that the National Assembly adopted the law setting up an independent investigation mechanism to establish the fate of “missing babies”. It also welcomed the fact that the authorities maintained close cooperation with the Council of Europe Secretariat during the process of adoption of the law so as to ensure a Convention-compliant solution. The Committee of Ministers invited the Serbian authorities to continue this cooperation to ensure full and effective implementation of the judgment, as well as to rapidly take the necessary practical measures to ensure the efficient implementation of the new fact-finding mechanism, in particular setting-up of the DNA database to facilitate the truth-seeking process and training of investigative judges and police to deal with cases of “missing babies”. The Serbian authorities will provide the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe with detailed information on the implementation and functioning of the investigative mechanism by October 1.
Due to the positive assessments, the Committee of Ministers decided to transfer the supervision of the execution of this judgment from the enhanced to the standard procedure.