{"id":3187,"date":"2025-12-13T16:02:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T14:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pokretmeri.org.rs\/home\/?p=3187"},"modified":"2025-12-13T18:31:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T16:31:43","slug":"constitutional-challenge-submitted-two-months-without-action-as-lives-continue-to-be-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pokretmeri.org.rs\/home\/2025\/12\/13\/constitutional-challenge-submitted-two-months-without-action-as-lives-continue-to-be-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional Challenge Submitted \u2014 Two Months Without Action as Lives Continue to Be Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On <strong>21 October 2025<\/strong>, <em>Pravo na \u017eivot \u2013 MERI ( Movement Right to Life \u2013 MERI)<\/em>, together with a group of <strong>60 Members of Parliament of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia<\/strong>, submitted to the <strong>Constitutional Court of Serbia<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pokretmeri.org.rs\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Proposal-for-the-Assessment-of-Constitutionality-and-Legality.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Proposal for the Assessment of Constitutionality and Legality\">Proposal for the Assessment of Constitutionality and Legality<\/a><\/strong>, submitted by Members of Parliament, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a<a href=\"https:\/\/pokretmeri.org.rs\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Constitutional-Initiative-Meri.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"> <strong>Constitutional Initiative<\/strong>,<\/a> submitted by the civil society organization <em>Pravo na \u017eivot \u2013 MERI<\/em>,<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>both challenging the <strong>Rulebook on the Manner and Organization of Providing Emergency Medical Assistance<\/strong> (\u201cOfficial Gazette of RS\u201d, No. 79\/2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83d\udcc4 The full texts <a href=\"https:\/\/pokretmeri.org.rs\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Rulebook-on-the-Manner-and-Organization-of-Providing-Emergency-Medical-Assistance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Rulebook on the Manner and Organization of Providing Emergency Medical Assistance  is available below in <strong>PDF format<\/strong>:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A six-year regulatory vacuum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Law on Health Care imposed a <strong>clear legal obligation on the Ministry of Health<\/strong> to regulate the organization and provision of emergency medical assistance through a bylaw.<br>However, this obligation remained <strong>unfulfilled for more than six years<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prolonged failure to adopt the required Rulebook created a <strong>regulatory vacuum<\/strong> in one of the most sensitive areas of public authority \u2014 emergency medical assistance \u2014 leaving life-and-death decisions to informal practices, internal acts, and discretionary assessments, without clear and binding legal standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The existence of regulatory shortcomings alone would not have been so critical if they had not coincided with <strong>a practice in which emergency medical teams are dispatched in only a minority of cases<\/strong>. According to official service data, in <strong>approximately 80% of emergency calls no team is sent to the field<\/strong>, while at the same time <strong>a significant number of deaths and severe health deteriorations occur following delayed or denied interventions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This situation is further aggravated by the fact that <strong>the same emergency medical teams are frequently assigned to private or commercial standby duties<\/strong>, even though their personnel, vehicles, and equipment are financed through <strong>public funds that citizens provide every day through taxes and mandatory health insurance contributions<\/strong>. The combination of a high rate of non-dispatched calls and the redirection of publicly funded resources to commercial engagements has amplified the consequences of the regulatory vacuum and significantly increased the risk to citizens\u2019 lives and health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only <strong>after sustained pressure from civil society organizations, affected families, and repeated public and professional warnings<\/strong>, the Ministry of Health adopted the Rulebook in 2025.<br>Yet, the adopted act represents <strong>a merely formal fulfillment of a long-overdue obligation<\/strong>, without addressing the <strong>substantive systemic problems<\/strong> that had been continuously pointed out over the previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of correcting those deficiencies, the Rulebook <strong>preserved existing harmful practices and legalized them<\/strong>, embedding them into a normative framework.<br>As a result, the Rulebook did not close the legal vacuum it was meant to resolve, but rather <strong>institutionalized it<\/strong>, transforming years of regulatory omission into a systemically unsafe legal standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is being challenged<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Both the Proposal and the Initiative demonstrate that the challenged Rulebook does not merely contain technical or drafting shortcomings. It establishes a <strong>systemic framework that endangers constitutionally guaranteed rights<\/strong>, particularly the <strong>right to life<\/strong>, <strong>right to health protection<\/strong>, <strong>equality before the law<\/strong>, and the <strong>right to an effective legal remedy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Subjective triage without binding medical protocols<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rulebook allows emergency dispatch decisions to be based on the <strong>individual and discretionary assessment<\/strong> of operators and physicians, without mandatory, evidence-based medical protocols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This enables situations in which <strong>identical symptoms are assessed differently<\/strong>, depending on who answers the call and where the patient is located, creating legal uncertainty, unequal treatment, and a serious risk of fatal delay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Delays justified by non-medical criteria<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Urgency is defined through legally indeterminate terms such as <em>\u201ctimely\u201d<\/em> and conditioned on the <em>number of available teams<\/em>.<br>This allows emergency assistance to be postponed for <strong>organizational or capacity reasons<\/strong>, even in situations involving immediate danger to life, contrary to the State\u2019s positive obligation to protect life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Absence of an effective legal remedy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A central problem identified in both submissions is the <strong>non-existence of an effective legal remedy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rulebook fails to explicitly recognize <strong>audio recordings of emergency calls as medical documentation<\/strong>, despite clear statutory definitions and established court practice. In practice, this leads to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>denial of access to key evidence for families of deceased patients,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>impossibility of objectively assessing professional conduct, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>systematic prevention of establishing responsibility.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Without clear protocols and without access to evidence, judicial and oversight procedures become <strong>illusory<\/strong>, rendering the constitutional right to an effective remedy merely formal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Systemic impunity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As documented through multiple concrete cases attached to the Initiative, <strong>no one has ever been held accountable<\/strong> for the failure to dispatch an emergency medical team, despite <strong>hundreds of fatal outcomes following delayed or denied emergency assistance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This persistent absence of accountability is not accidental. It is the predictable consequence of a system designed in a way that makes responsibility practically impossible to establish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Unlawful commercialization of emergency medical assistance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rulebook enables the diversion of publicly funded emergency medical teams to <strong>commercial engagements<\/strong>, reducing availability for citizens covered by mandatory health insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such practice directly contradicts the public character of emergency medical assistance and further increases the risk of delayed interventions with severe or fatal consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Failure to provide special protection for children<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the Constitution explicitly guarantees special protection for children, the Rulebook contains <strong>no mandatory pediatric-specific protocols<\/strong>, treating children and adults under the same triage criteria, despite fundamentally different medical risks and clinical presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Two months of institutional silence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the Proposal and the Initiative were submitted <strong>more than two months ago<\/strong>, the <strong>Constitutional Court has not yet taken any action<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During this period, the challenged Rulebook has remained fully in force, while the same systemic deficiencies continue to produce <strong>irreparable consequences<\/strong> \u2014 delayed responses, denied assistance, permanent health impairment, and loss of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This case does not concern abstract constitutional theory. It concerns the <strong>daily functioning of emergency medical services<\/strong> and the State\u2019s most fundamental duty:<br>to protect human life and to ensure accountability when that protection fails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why this procedure matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and the European Convention on Human Rights impose on the State not only a duty to refrain from unlawful deprivation of life, but also a <strong>positive obligation<\/strong> to establish:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>a clear, safe, and evidence-based regulatory framework, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>an effective system for determining responsibility when lives are lost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A system in which people die, evidence is denied, and no one is ever held responsible represents a <strong>systemic constitutional failure<\/strong>, not an isolated malfunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For these reasons, <em>Pravo na \u017eivot \u2013 MERI<\/em> continues to call for <strong>urgent action<\/strong> by the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Below is a video recording of a statement delivered at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia following the submission of the constitutional challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The statement is delivered in Serbian, with English subtitles provided for accessibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe title=\"Statement at the National Assembly on the Emergency Medical Assistance Rulebook\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QojpPFL1lYc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 21 October 2025, Pravo na \u017eivot \u2013 MERI ( Movement Right to Life \u2013 MERI), together with a group of 60 Members of Parliament of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, submitted to the Constitutional Court of Serbia: both challenging the Rulebook on the Manner and Organization of Providing Emergency Medical Assistance 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