even among this population, legally invisible persons stand out for their particularly difficult position. Not only have they not completed education, but very often they cannot read or write; not only are they not employed, but barely survive performing the most difficult and least profitable types of work. They do not receive social assistance or any other form of social support, and when they get sick they do not go to the doctor because they do not have health cards. Most often these are the internally displaced persons from Kosovo who live in isolated informal settlements, and the persons who almost never in their life addressed public authorities for any reason. If we examine the aforementioned cases from the practice of courts and administrative authorities, as well as other described problems faced by persons at risk of statelessness, we can conclude that without expert legal assistance they could never exercise their rights. Since these are the people who live in extreme poverty, it is clear that they can rely only on the support free of charge. It is well known that these persons have for years relied on free legal assistance provided by non-governmental organisations. Seeking to examine whether and in which way the public authorities helped the citizens who were not registered into birth registry books, Praxis sent freedom of information requests to all local self-government units and social welfare centres requesting information about whether they provided free legal aid to individuals in the procedures for determining the date and place of birth. FREE LEGAL AID OFFICES: Praxis sent requests to municipal and city administrations to obtain information of whether they had established offices for the provision of free legal aid, the number of beneficiaries to whom the free legal aid offices had drawn up petitions for determining the date and place of birth and the number of beneficiaries to whom the free legal aid related to these procedures had been provided in some other way. The requests were sent to 166 cities and municipalities36. The answers were provided by 150 local self-government units, while 16 local self-government units did not respond. The answers revealed that in 77 cities and municipalities there is a certain type of free legal aid37, while 73 cities and municipalities do not have any type of free legal aid. Hence, in approximately one half of the cities and municipalities citizens can hope to be provided with free legal aid. From among the local self-government units in which there is an organised provision of free legal aid, only in 13 of them citizens were provided with free legal assistance in the form of drawing up petitions for determining the date and place of birth, which constitutes only 8.7% of all local self-government units that responded to our requests. In these local selfgovernment units, a total of 29 petitions for determining the date and place of birth were drawn up for the last four years. As regards some other form of free legal aid related to the procedures for determining the date and place of birth, such as drawing up submissions or legal counselling, it was provided to citizens only in 3 municipalities (2% municipalities that responded) and only in 29 cases. 36 The information was not requested from 30 local self-government units from the AP Kosovo and Metohija. Most local self-government units have established free legal aid offices, while in others the assistance is provided in some other way: for example, through appointing an employee for providing legal assistance or by providing assistance within the project-based cooperation with non-governmental organisations or bar associations. 37 27