At the sitting held on 22 July, the Committee on Labour, Ex-Servicemen’s and Social Issues considered the Information on the activities of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy for the period from 1 January to 30 June 2011. The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairman Meho Omerovic, and attended by Zoran Martinovic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.

The Ministry representative stated that in the previous period the Ministry continued the regular payment of all social benefits within its purview. In addition, in the previous period the Ministry had significant activities in the normative sphere. The Working Group for the drafting of amendments and modifications to the Labour Law is constantly in session, by-laws necessary for the implementation of the Social Protection Law and Law amending and modifying the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance are also in the process of adoption. As regards protection of persons with disabilities, competitions have been called to finance projects by organisations of persons with disabilities. The Ministry’s attention had also been focused on suppressing illegal labour, Martinovic pointed out.

In the ensuing debate the Committee members focused on considering the realisation of ex-servicemen’s disability rights, as well as discrimination against persons with disabilities particularly in the sphere of employment.

The Committee on Labour, Ex-Servicemen’s and Social Issues unanimously adopted the Information on the activities of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy for the period from 1 January to 30 June 2011, with the following conclusions:

1.The Committee accepts the Information on the activities of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy for the period from 1 January to 30 June 2011;

2.The Committee endorses the Ministry’s initiative to adopt Conclusions on the need to and manner of regulating unpaid pension and disability contributions for certain business entities and believes that the state should exert stricter control in the collection of the same;

3.The Committee draws attention to the need to strengthen activities on remedying the consequences of the criminal activities undertaken in the procedures for the granting of ex-servicemen’s disability rights and supports the cooperation between the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior on the matter.

At the proposal of Committee Chairman Meho Omerovic, the Committee members also adopted the Conclusions from the Public Hearing on “Exercising the rights of refugees and exiled persons in their countries of origin”, organised by the Committee at the National Assembly House on 20 June 2011:

1.The Republic of Serbia needs to open a dialogue with the Republic of Croatia before Chapter 23 “Justice and human rights” can be closed, so as to come up with a just and lasting solution to the problems of half a million of Serbian exiles and refugees and more than 100 000 Serbian citizens whose human rights in Croatia are threatened;

2.There is a the need to establish cooperation between the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia and Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia toward revising the lists of suspects, defendants and convicted for war crimes and enable refugees who have Serbian citizenship to be tried i.e. to serve their sentence in the Republic of Serbia;

3.The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia is appealed to send a memo to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina asking not to extradite the renowned historian Mile Dakic to the Republic of Croatia in view of his advanced age and illness, but rather enable him to be prosecuted in the Republic of Serbia;

4.It is recommended that RTS as a public service should, once a month, include in its programme a show dedicated to refugees and their problems with the participation of representatives of the Government, refugee associations and the academic community;

5.The Government of the Republic of Serbia is expected to submit to the National Assembly the text of the proposed resolutions on human rights of Serbian exiles and refugees from the Republic of Serbia and citizens whose property and other rights have been violated in the Republic of Croatia and whose adoption was initiated by the Coalition of Refugee Associations in the Republic of Serbia.

Concluding the sitting, the Committee Chairman informed the members that the Committee on Labour, Ex-Servicemen’s and Social Issues would request from the competent Ministry of Economy and Regional Development Information on the implementation of the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities considering the Committee members’ belief that persons with disabilities age being discriminated against in the sphere of employment.