It is also pertinent to mention here that Goal 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals aims to “by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration”.19 As mentioned in the UN Secretary General’s Report, Goal 16.9 “will not be fully met unless Articles 7 and 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child are universally respected and fulfilled and childhood statelessness has been eradicated.”20 In August 2012, Serbia adopted the Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure,21 which established a new court procedure for the determination of date and place of birth. The procedure is intended for persons who cannot be registered in the birth registry book through an administrative procedure. However, there are still unresolved issues regarding timely birth registration and it is necessary to alleviate conditions for the birth registration of children whose parents do not possess documents. 15. Article 23(2) of Serbia’s Law on Registries states that the Registrar is obliged to register data in the registry without delay, which is in line with Article 7 CRC and Article 24(2) of the ICCPR. However, Article 23(3) of the Law on Registries states: “Exceptionally, registration may be deferred in order to verify or ascertain the missing data to be entered in the register”. The ERRC and Praxis, with support from ENS, lodged a constitutional initiative with the Constitutional Court in Serbia in February 2016 targeting provisions of the Law on Registries which allow registrars to delay birth registration. The ERRC and Praxis relied primarily on Article 24(2) of the ICCPR, and the requirement that births must be registered immediately. However, in September 2016, the Constitutional Court rejected the initiative. This judgment does not appear to be in accordance with Article 7(1) of the CRC or Article 24(2) of the ICCPR. 16. In May 2017 the Constitutional Court rejected Praxis’ appeal lodged in 2015 on behalf of a child whose birth could not be registered immediately after birth because his mother was undocumented.22 The reason for the rejection was the Court’s view that the question was no longer material due to the fact that the baby had been subsequently registered seven months after initially lodging the appeal. The Court failed to acknowledge that there had nonetheless been a breach of the applicant’s right at the time, and it is beyond doubt that birth registration performed more than seven months after a child’s birth cannot satisfy the standard “immediately”, i.e. within days or weeks after births. In spite its competence to issue decisions which relate to all persons in the same legal situation, the Court failed to consider the fact that the practice which caused the violation of the applicant’s rights continues to affect many other children whose parents are undocumented. 17. In its most recent review of Serbia, the Committee on the Rights of the Child pointed out the following: “The Committee notes as positive amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure that have corrected loopholes relevant for “legally invisible people” by establishing a court procedure for determining the date and place of birth of unregistered persons. It further welcomes the development of Guidelines for Implementing Administrative Procedures related to the birth of the child on the basis of all in one place in cooperation with the Ombudsman and UNHCR. The Committee is concerned that despite these amendments approximately 8,500 persons are not registered at birth, with the vast majority 19 UN General Assembly, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1. UN Human Rights Council, Impact of the arbitrary deprivation of nationality on the enjoyment of the rights of children concerned, and existing laws and practices on accessibility for children to acquire nationality, inter alia, of the country in which they are born, if they would otherwise be stateless, 16 December 2015, A/HRC/31/29, para 33. 21 Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, no. 8/2012. 22 See Euroepan Network on Statelessness, An update on statelessness in Europe, http://mailchi.mp/statelessness/ens-newsletterjune-2017-news-and-updates-on-nationality-and-statelessness-from-across-europe. 20 5