The Third Sitting of the Working Group for the drafting of Bills for the purpose of creating formal legal conditions enabling the authorities to act on the reports of disappearances of newborn babies from maternity wards, chaired by Maja Videnovic was held on 13 October.

At the sitting, the members considered the opinion of the Ministry of Justice regarding the laws and by-laws which need to be amended and adjusted for the purpose of creating the formal legal conditions enabling the authorities to act on the reports of disappearances of newborn babies from maternity wards, in accordance with the Working Group’s conclusion of 15 July this year.

Ministry of Justice representative Jovan Cosic said that the valid criminal regulations regulate the case matter satisfactorily. The September 2009 amendments and modifications to the Criminal Code tighten the penalties for the criminal offenses of kidnapping of an underage person and human trafficking and underage persons for adoption. However, the statute of limitations on the reports of disappearances of newborn babies from maternity wards which happened 50 years ago has irrevocably expired and the prosecutorship cannot act on the criminal reports.

The new amendments to the Criminal Code could prolong the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution, but that would pertain to future cases, not for the cases whose statute of limitations had already expired, said the Ministry of Justice representative.

Marija Draskic, Professor of the Belgrade Faculty of Law, stated that retroactivity in the field of criminal law is expressly forbidden and that these specific cases of disappearances of babies from maternity wards cannot be processed.

The Working Group members agreed to prepare an activity report for the next sitting and forward it to the National Assembly for consideration.