THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION UNDER THE NEW FAMILY LEGISLATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA
THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION UNDER THE NEW FAMILY LEGISLATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

Summary/Abstract: In the contemporary law, the child has been given the status of a legal personality which makes the child entitled to a corpus of independent and autonomous rights that are quite distinct from the rights of the parents and the family as a whole. In compliance with the contemporary concept of the rights of the child, there are two concurrent processes that can be observed in the field of expanding the legislative framework for the protection of these rights: the process of establishing special civil capacity of the child and the process of constituting the so-called participation rights of the child, with special reference to the right of the child to the freedom of expression. The new Serbian Family Act has recognized the child's right to the freedom of expression as a qualified right which can be exercised in the field of family and other relations as well as in judicial and administrative proceedings concerning the child's rights. The analysis of the statutory provisions on the legal proceedings for exercising the right of the child to express his/her views shows that the legislator has not provided relevant legislative instruments which would enable the child to exercise this right. In particular, the most disputable legal solutions are those pertaining to the right of the child to seek and receive all the information necessary to form his/her own views. Although the new Family Act has envisaged the right of the child to receive relevant information for the purpose of forming one's own opinion, the scope of actual implementation of this right has been laid down too narrowly as this right was originally envisaged to be exercised only in judicial and administrative proceedings where the child is expected to form and express his/her own opinion. Moreover, the new Family Act has not envisaged appropriate instruments which could help the child in case when the competent bodies of authority fail to provide the necessary information to the child.

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