birth certificate – on the basis of court decision10, it is undisputable that in such cases it is justifiable to conduct a court procedure or more precisely – non-contentious procedure. However, it seems that in these procedures the provisions of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure regulating the determination of the date and place of birth were applied wrongly, because this procedure is intended for the persons who are not registered in any birth registry books and who were born in Serbia.11 Moreover, the courts sometimes conducted procedures even when the petitioners possessed foreign birth certificates, although it is clear that in such cases administrative procedures should have been conducted. RIGHT TO CITIZENSHIP As regards the exercising of the right to citizenship, the main impression is that there have been fewer problems this year than before. However, the irregularities observed in the previous years mainly occurred this year too, only to a lesser extent. In addition, certain problems that in the past occurred only sporadically have been observed recently in a higher number of procedures. Taking into account that the registration in birth registry books is almost always a prerequisite for the acquisition and/or registration of citizenship, it is primarily necessary to point out the problems that arise in the procedures whose main goal is the registration in birth registry books. In the previous section, we have indicated the shortcomings in the court procedures for determining the date and place of birth, and in this section we will discuss the administrative procedures of subsequent birth registration, determining the personal name and birth registration of persons who were born abroad. We will also mention the practice of authorities in the procedures of acquiring citizenship before the Ministry of Interior, and discuss the issue of registering the fact of citizenship in birth registry books in the execution of court decisions determining the facts of date and place of birth, as well as other procedures and problems relevant to the possibility of exercising the right to citizenship. SUBSEQUENT BIRTH REGISTRATION: The procedure of subsequent birth registration is an administrative procedure conducted in cases of people born at home, without notifying the registrar and registering their fact of birth within 30 days of birth12. One of the irregularities noticeable in these procedures in the previous years refers to the cases where the authorities issued decisions that did not contain the name and surname of the submitters of request. In addition, it often happened that in entering data from the decision on subsequent registration into birth registry books, the registrars failed to record the fact of citizenship, although the legal requirements for acquiring citizenship were met. Such practice of authorities resulted in the situation where in addition to conducting a subsequent birth registration procedures, the parties were compelled to conduct also the lengthy procedures of determining the personal name before social welfare centres or procedures for acquiring citizenship before the Ministry of Interior. The cases in which the parties had to wait for an additional year or two for these procedures to be conducted are not rare. On several occasions, Praxis addressed the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and the Ministry of Interior pointing to such practice, which after some time resulted in the issuance 10 Article 76 of the Law on Registry Books, Official Gazette of RS, nos. 20/2009 and 145/2014 See Article 71a, paragraph 1 and Article 71g, paragraphs 1 and 4 of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure 12 Article 25 of the Law on Registry Books 11 9