Asking Future Students to Prove Their Ethnicity

The Provincial Ombudsman institution expresses its concern regarding the information on the Roma National Minority Council website obliging Roma students wishing to enroll high schools, colleges and universities based on the special measures program to annex a formal document proving that they have been enrolled in the special voters’ list.

The website says this document is required in order for students to prove that they are members of the Roma ethnic minority. If they fail to do so, their application will be dismissed as incomplete.

The Serbian Constitution grants free expression of one’s ethnicity. Expressing one’s ethnicity is thus entirely voluntary, done on one’s own behalf and it can be withdrawn or changed at free will. Furthermore, the National Minority Councils Law proscribes that the special voters’ list is an official record of the ethnic minority members with a voting right. It also says that it is forbidden to use data from this list for any other purpose than exercising one’s voting rights, unless otherwise ruled by law. Since no other law proscribes any use of these data or the list containing them, there is no legal ground for the Roma National Minority Council to restrict or condition the exercise of any other rights of any Roma by requesting a formal document proving that they are on the special voters’ list.

The Provincial Ombudsman is particularly concerned about the fact that such a document is required from underage persons as well, whereas the Serbian legislation provides that only mature citizens have voting rights.

In 2013, the Provincial Ombudsman already pointed out the illegal practice in the exercise of the affirmative measures concerning enrollment in colleges and universities, underlying that in Serbia there is no legal ground for issuing an ethnicity certificate. This means that the right to a special measure introduced to provide for equal opportunities and full equality of the members of an ethnic minority and the majority can be exercised exclusively based on one’s own, personal expression of one’s ethnicity that can be withdrawn anytime.

Starting from the fact that in Serbia there is no legal ground for issuing an ethnicity certificate, it cannot be issued by either the National Council or any other public authority. The document proving one’s enrollment into the special voters’ list is issued by the authority in charge of recordkeeping in the list, but such a document, in turn and as stated before, cannot be considered an ethnicity certificate.

Due to the practice of incorrect exercise of the special measures for enrollment of students in high schools, colleges and universities, the Provincial Ombudsman holds that it is necessary to proscribe criteria for exercising these measures that would abide the Constitution and the law.