Podgorica, (MINA) – Regulating legal status of the members of Romani population would facilitate exercising their rights in all areas, said director of NGO Phiren Amenca Elvis Berisa, adding that the state’s role is of the utmost importance in that process.
According to him, exercising the rights in all areas, starting from the health care, education and employment, is closely connected and caused by regulating the legal status in Montenegro.
“By regulating legal status of the members of Romani population, who have no status in Montenegro, whether as foreigners with permanent or temporary residence, would certainly facilitate exercising their rights in all areas”, Berisa told Mina.
According to him, in the previous period, many projects and efforts were invested in resolving their legal status, but there are many of those who still haven’t regulated their legal status.
Berisa said that this NGO started a survey with the goal of registering all persons with this problem, i.e. how many are there of those who are not able to exercise their rights for not having regulated their legal status in Montenegro.
“According to the official data, there is no person in Montenegro without citizenship, i.e. a stateless person, but we are constantly meeting those who have no citizenship”, said Berisa.
He was a stateless person for two years, because of the change in the legislative framework following the break of the former Yugoslavia, and thus he understands well the problems those persons are facing.
Berisa explained that the UN 1954 Convention defines that a person without citizenship of neither country, can receive a citizenship of a country he or she is currently living in and that they are entitled to all the rights as other citizens.
“That is one of the reasons why we have official statistics that say that there is no stateless persons in Montenegro, since if they would be qualified as such, those persons would be entitled to the same rights as other citizens in accordance with the UN and its conventions”, Berisa concluded.Longer version of article is available on a link MINA ENGLISH SERVIS
