As a final event within the consulting process aimed at improving and harmonizing the national practice of asylum procedure, the conference “Challenges in practice and the direction of the future improvement of asylum procedure in the Republic of Serbia” will be organized at the Envoy hotel on Thursday 13 December, 2018. The conference marks the second stage of the project “Support to Strengthening Migration and Asylum Management in Serbia” implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and supported by the British Embassy in Belgrade.
The previous process gave opportunity to the representatives of key institutions to identify the most significant challenges for the practice resulting from relevant new legal solutions that were brought either by themselves or at joint events, with the support of national and international experts. The workshops that were held resulted in the formulation of conclusions and recommendations with regard to possible improvement in practice, while the final conference will be an opportunity to present recommendations of individual institutions to the professional audience and, in mutual discussion, define directions for harmonization and improvement of their work.
The conference will be divided in three parts. The first, introductory one will be dedicated to the challenges in practice in the field of asylum and migration in the Republic of Serbia, the second will be dedicated to presentation of challenges and novelties in the field of asylum in EU, while in the third and final one, participants will, in the small discussion groups, draw conclusions referring to the challenges and recommendations identified by various institutions within the consultative process. In addition, the content of the handbook and online course created by the AIRE center team in this stage of the project will be presented at the conference.
The conference will be opened by Lidija Marković, director to the International Organization for Migration office in Belgrade (IOM), Stuart Taylor, the second secretary at the British Embassy in Belgrade, responsible for Migration.
The conference will be attended by the renowned international experts, public servants who take part in the asylum procedure and representatives of the institutions important for the establishment of a successful and effective asylum system in Serbia, including, among others, Nuala Mole, senior lawyer and founder of the AIRE center, Markella Papadouli, European Litigation Coordinator for the AIRE center, the coauthor of the Handbook on European Asylum and Migration Standards, Biljana Braithwaite, AIRE Western Balkans Program Manager, prof. dr. Ivana Krstić, the Associate Professor of the Law School of Belgrade University, dr. Vuk Cucić, the Assistant Professor of the Law School of Belgrade University and Miroslava Jelačić, the lawyer with the Group 484, all of whom participated as experts in the consultative process.