Context and conclusions
The proposed amendments do not correspond directly to ODIHR recommendations, nor to CRTA's recommendations. ODIHR recommendation No. 4 (2023) relates in principle to the need to review laws, regulations, and practices in order to enable access to voter register data and facilitate a meaningful audit of the Unified Voter Register with the participation of relevant stakeholders, including political parties and civil society, in line with data protection standards. Recommendation No. 13 (2022): to guarantee universal suffrage and prevent unjustified disenfranchisement or unequal treatment of voters, consideration should be given to introducing objective, reasonable, and non-discriminatory procedures for registering citizens without permanent residence in the voter register and enabling those citizens to exercise their voting rights. As for CRTA's priority recommendations, CRTA insists on conducting an independent audit of the voter register in line with international standards and ODIHR recommendations (an audit now within the competence of the Commission for the Audit of the Voter Register). In addition, CRTA emphasizes the need to improve the inefficient and slow MoI procedure for handling requests from property owners who suspect that unknown persons are registered at their address, in particular by specifying the deadline within which the MoI is obliged to act on such a request.
The set of laws primarily regulates the question of diaspora voting, while in its explanatory statements the proposer specifically invokes the practice of the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, and Council of Europe recommendations on diaspora participation in elections. However, given the sensitivity of the current political and social situation, CRTA considers that it is not possible to fully anticipate all the consequences of the proposed legislative solutions, and that there is a risk that certain categories of voters could be subject to the restriction or denial of specific rights. At the same time, the proposed solutions may place an additional burden on citizens in terms of proving and updating data, while leaving room for selective application. This could lead to new abuses by the very same Ministry of Interior officials who carried out such acts in the 2023 elections and were never held accountable for them.
CRTA assesses that the positive effects of the proposed set of laws could be reflected in strengthening the alignment between the legal and factual situation through the introduction of the actual-residence criterion, with the aim of preventing abuses. In this sense, the solutions seek to remove fictitiously registered voters from the Unified Voter Register. The proposals additionally entail the systematic inclusion of the diaspora in the political process at the republic level, removing the previous conditionality of residence in Serbia, as well as improving the legal position of citizens abroad through the possibility of issuing personal documents and registration based on a foreign address. A more precise definition of the electorate at the local election level grants the right to vote only to voters who factually live in that territory, with the aim of preventing so-called electoral tourism.
Furthermore, the establishment of a centralized and interconnected records system is envisaged, which in principle can increase administrative efficiency and reduce administrative errors. This could facilitate the exercise of rights by citizens abroad, contributing to more long-term and better-informed public policy planning toward the diaspora.
The normative recognition and sanctioning of organized electoral manipulation is aimed at protecting the integrity of the electoral process. Finally, a special mechanism for initiating address checks is proposed, on the recommendation of the Commission for the Audit of the Voter Register, to be carried out by the Ministry of Interior, along with incentives for a more responsible attitude of citizens toward records and their own legal status.
CRTA considers that the potential shortcomings and risks of the proposed set of laws relate primarily to the scope of the Ministry of Interior's discretionary powers in determining the center of life activities, which is liable to open room for inconsistent practice and selective application. Targeted checks of specific territories or groups of voters, based on legal provisions, further heighten the risk of possible political abuse of control mechanisms.
A particularly problematic aspect is the mechanism of automatic passivization of an address without the prior conclusion of a procedure, which can lead to the loss of the right to vote and other status-related rights due to administrative errors or inadequately conducted procedures - meaning that an insufficiently clearly regulated procedure could restrict the exercise of constitutionally guaranteed rights. Example: students who went abroad for temporary study. Six months after leaving, they lost the right to vote in local elections, which deprived them of their voting rights and their right to local self-government, while they had not acquired that right abroad since they had not moved permanently. A normative risk also arises from the insufficient precision of the criminal offense of organized registration ("more than two persons"), which could also cover situations in which there is no actual abuse. In practical terms, the question remains open of the factual feasibility of reliably verifying actual residence abroad, which would limit the reach of the proposed solutions.
At the same time, the lack of clearly elaborated legal remedies, appeal procedures, and judicial review of decisions by administrative authorities weakens the guarantees for the protection of citizens' rights, while the proposed solutions do not include adequate mechanisms for personal data protection, even though they simultaneously provide for the exchange of a large number of records, including at the international level, which increases the risk regarding the protection of personal data.
CRTA's position is that legislative amendments cannot remove the existing problems related to the voter register, and that a comprehensive, independent, and credible audit of the Unified Voter Register must be carried out first. The solutions proposed in the set of laws are primarily aimed at establishing a new normative and records system, but do not address the current state of the voter register, which is burdened by long-standing structural irregularities, including fictitious voters and inaccurate records.
Conducting the audit of the voter register before the Commission for the Audit of the Voter Register is a precondition for the effective application of any legislative solutions. Only once a reliable, verified, and updated database is established could legislative amendments contribute to strengthening citizens' trust and the integrity of the electoral process.
Overview of the proposed changes
The proposals
The proposed set of laws introduces the concept of actual residence, defined as the place where a person has the center of their life activities (professional, economic, social, and other ties), while it is expressly stipulated that a citizen may have only one such residence, either in the Republic of Serbia or abroad, with a ban on simultaneously registering a domestic and a foreign address.
The concept is operationalized through amendments to the Law on Residence and Domicile of Citizens, which introduce an obligation for every citizen to register a single, actual residence, together with an obligation to deregister their previous residence in Serbia within 30 days of moving abroad, and to update any change in a timely manner.
Records of this data are kept by the Ministry of Interior through the Register of Citizens Abroad, which is part of the central residence records and is linked to other state registers (the voter register, ID card records, civil registries), whereby an application may also be submitted to the competent authority in the country or through diplomatic and consular missions. Once registered, actual residence abroad produces direct legal consequences with respect to records, personal documents, and the exercise of voting rights.
Misdemeanor and criminal sanctions are introduced for failure to register or for abuses, including the organized registration of multiple persons at addresses.
The mechanism is also regulated in other laws. The Law on Citizenship introduces the criterion of three years of factual residence instead of formally registering residence, along with a ban on fictitious registrations, while amendments to the Law on Civil Registries prescribe mandatory recording of actual residence and a ban on retaining a domestic address for persons registered abroad. In this way, actual residence becomes the overarching criterion that produces direct legal consequences across several connected records systems.
The Register of Citizens Abroad is a newly introduced, centralized record kept by the Ministry of Interior, in which citizens of the Republic of Serbia with actual residence outside Serbia's territory are systematically recorded, together with their foreign addresses and status changes. The register is established through amendments to the Law on Residence and Domicile, and its function is reinforced through amendments to the Law on the Unified Voter Register, which establish a direct link between this register and the voter register, as well as through amendments to the Law on Civil Registries, which introduce an obligation to align residence data with the data in the register.
Data is entered into this register based on citizens' applications (submitted to the MoI or to diplomatic and consular missions) and administrative updating through connected records, whereby diplomatic and consular missions have an exclusively intermediary and technical role in entering data, while decision-making and management of the register remain within the competence of the MoI.
In particular, it is proposed that the MoI, ex officio, identify all addresses at which there is a statistically unusual increase in the number of registered persons, stating the dates of the period under review; initiate procedures to verify actual residence in cases where the Commission for the Audit, Verification, and Control of the Accuracy and Updating of the Voter Register submits a recommendation to check specific addresses or persons; passivize addresses where necessary; and initiate appropriate proceedings against the said persons.
Registration in the register produces direct legal consequences in several areas - voter status (automatic registration to vote abroad), residence status, and the issuance of personal documents (ID cards and passports) based on a foreign address. In this way, the register functions as a central information hub which, by consolidating data, enables the automation of procedures, but at the same time increases the systemic dependence of various rights on a single record.
The role of diplomatic and consular missions in this set of proposals is intermediary, and their function consists of the following: receiving citizens' applications and statements regarding the registration of residence abroad and other status records; entering and updating data in the civil records and the Register of Citizens Abroad kept by the MoI as the central authority; mediating communication between the citizen and domestic authorities; and providing technical and administrative support for the recording process (for example, collecting and forwarding data on the address and status abroad).
Consular missions would function as an extended administrative arm of the domestic records system abroad, enabling the registration and updating of data to be carried out outside Serbia's territory, while decision-making and control are concentrated in the Ministry of Interior through the central registers.
The solution is envisaged through amendments to the Law on Residence, the Law on Civil Registries, the Law on Travel Documents, and the Law on ID Cards.
In the proposed amendments, the Unified Voter Register is redefined as a centralized voter database linked to other records, in which registration is no longer based solely on registered residence in the Republic of Serbia, but on actual residence as the center of life activities. Voters who have residence in Serbia are registered according to that address, while citizens with actual residence abroad are automatically entered into the voter register with a foreign address and are considered registered to vote abroad without a separate request.
The Register of Citizens Abroad becomes the key data source directly linked to the voter register and to ID card records and civil registries, and changes in residence status automatically produce changes in voter status (including automatic registration or a change of polling location), while an additional restriction is introduced whereby persons with actual residence abroad have no right to participate in local elections nor may they be members of bodies for conducting local elections.
The model additionally relies on the proposed amendments to the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament and the Law on the Election of the President of the Republic, which expressly guarantee voting rights to citizens with actual residence abroad, including participation in the second round of presidential elections.
The system is designed so that the voter register is updated through the continuous exchange of data between the MoI and connected registers, with the possibility of administrative corrections and address checks in the case of statistically unusual registration patterns.
