National legal system in relation to vulnerable population groups
Authors: Sjenicic Marta 
Published: February 2016

Vulnerable social groups can be recognized in everyday life, and local legal
regulations identify them as well. Strategies and laws clearly identify the
increased needs of vulnerable groups. Local legislation, for example,
observes comparative law trends and attempts to prevent discrimination of
persons with disabilities, emphasizes their human rights and creates the
legal framework for taking these persons out of the institutional form of
protection and including them into the community. In Serbia however,
strategies and laws, as well as by-laws, are written in sectors, and not in
cross-sectors manner. Proper caring for persons with disabilities, including
persons with mental disabilities, requires an integral approach, namely a
mutual approach of the social, health, educational and other sectors. True
enough, local regulations stress the need for an intersectional approach, but
such an approach is scantily applied in practice, so the comprehensive care
that would satisfy the multiple needs of persons with mental disabilities
often turns out to be less than expected in the community. Pursuant to
national laws and basic ethic principals, all citizens of the Republic of
Serbia have the right to health protection without discrimination. Therefore,
methods for using health protection, easier than the existing ones, should be
found for certain vulnerable groups, depending on their characteristics, and
so for the Roma as well, and bearing in mind that systemic health regulations
in Serbia open the door to special treatment of these groups. The
inaccessible approach to health care of the Roma population persists
primarily due to insufficient basic health documentation and basic personal
documentation. Personal documents are linked with the registered place of
residence, which the Roma, largely do not have. The problem is thus on a
wider scale and is not only focused on the health sector. As such, it
requires a wider, intersectional approach and a coordinated solution to the
problem. In the field of palliative care of terminally ill persons, a
solution is on the way to be reached through the Strategy for Palliative
Care, by reorganizing the health system. The health system as it is cannot
fulfill the needs of persons requiring palliative care. Coextensive systems
enable establishing hospices as charity organizations in the non-governmental
sector, mainly financed from donations. They represent a support to the
health system in taking care of terminally ill patients. For now, our legal
system does now allow non-governmental organizations to engage in health
activities, although there were initiatives in that direction. To some
extent, national regulations offer a basis for treatment of patients with
rare illnesses, but without specifying their rights to a diagnosis or
treatment and without more detailed regulations on the allocation of funds
directed towards diagnosing rare illnesses and treatment of the ill. A lack
of legal and financial prerequisites makes them subject to discrimination.
The very fact that a large number of these patients are children makes them
twice as endangered category of population. The legal system has recently
started dealing with a regulation that would support persons suffering from
rare illnesses, but the implementation of these provisions has still not
completely become a reality. The Law on Health Care and Insurance defines
children and women in their reproductive period as an especially vulnerable
group. The Law on Rights to Healthcare for Children, Pregnant Women and Women
on Maternity Leave, has recently been brought. The Law has been brought with
an aim of ensuring rights to health care and transportation costs benefits
for children, pregnant women and mothers during maternity leave, regardless
of the basis on which they have health insurance. The reason for bringing
such a law is noble, but the form of the legal act, which was supposed to
realize the set goal, was overemphasized and contributed to the already
existing over-norming of Serbian legislature. The legal basis for regulating
this issue already existed in the umbrella health laws and should have been
realized through by-law regulations.