The second sitting of the Working Group for the drafting of Bills for the purpose of creating formal legal conditions enabling authorities to act on reports of disappearances of newborn babies from maternity wards, chaired by Maja Videnovic, was held on 22 July.

At the sitting, the officials considered the laws and other regulations that need to be amended and adjusted, as well as the proposals of amendments and modifications to the laws from the sphere of criminal, administrative and domestic law and medicine.

Representative of the Ministry of Justice to the Working Group Jelica Radulovic pointed out that the regulations in the sphere of medicine do not impede the authorities in acting on the reports on missing newborns from maternity wards and that they need not be amended. She said that the Law on Health Care dictates that a newborn that dies in a medical facility on birth or in treatment shall undergo a post mortem examination as a special measure to determine the time and cause of death, and that a biological specimen is obligatorily taken and permanently preserved. The medical facility is obliged to inform an adult member of the family of the cause and time of death post haste and allow him/her direct access to the body of the deceased, and if the deceased is a newborn to immediately and directly inform the mother.

Jelica Radulovic stressed that a birth certificate is filled out for every child, no matter for how long after birth the newborn was alive, as well as for a stillborn child on the condition that it was carried for more than 28 weeks.

Ministry of Interior representative to the Working Group Vijoleta Palic also said that the Law on the Police and other regulations in the field do not impede the authorities in acting on the reports on missing newborns from maternity wards. According to her, so far the biggest problem has been the absolute expiration of the statute of limitation in the criminal proceedings which is why the Ministry of Justice should propose amendments to the Law on Criminal and Misdemeanor procedure, particularly the provisions relating to the institute of statute of limitation.

The Working Group members pointed out that the actions on the reports on missing newborns from maternity wards have so far been very unclear adding that the medical surveillance procedure should be improved and health inspectors should be more involved.