During March and April 2026, the Ministry for Family Care and Demography conducted a public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Family Law. The following text a brief overview of the most significant of the proposed changes:

1. The currently existing possibility of concluding a marriage at the age of 16, and before reaching the age of majority, with consent obtained in a non-litigation procedure, is abolished. Namely, such a possibility is characterized as a green light for the conclusion of the so-called “child marriages”, for which reasons the intention is to abolish them in the future.

2. The possibility of registering a child who was born abroad in the Register of Births is being introduced, with the note that “maternity has not been established” in situations where this is the case. According to the current legal solution, there is no possibility of maternity not being established in any case, given that the woman who gave birth to the child is considered the mother of the child and is entered in the Register of Births. Such a solution remains in place for all children born in the Republic of Serbia, however, bearing in mind the possibility of applying the institute of surrogate motherhood abroad, thus allowing a solution to the problem of registering children born in this way in the Register of Births in the Republic of.

At the same time, in this way it is also possible for the child to acquire the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia by entering the child in the Register of Births, if the child’s father has the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia.

3. The legal possibility is introduced for children under the age of 10 to express their opinions on procedures that concern them, in accordance with their age. However, according to our interpretation, such a possibility already exists, and it is mandatory for children older than 10 years of age.

The novelty in that part is the explicit obligation of the court, i.e., of another acting authority, that, if it does not respect the child’s opinion, it must explain the reasons which guided the decision and why the opinion was not respected.

4. Legal articles are added which explicitly regulate the prohibition of humiliating treatment and corporal punishment of children, i.e., other actions that offend the human dignity and integrity of children.

5. Certain legal provisions related to adoption, guardianship and foster care have been amended in the spirit of achieving the best interests of children, i.e., wards. In this sense, one of the most significant changes is the deletion of the provision that gave the child’s parents the opportunity to designate adoptive parents, and the choice of adoptive parents will be made exclusively by the guardianship authority.

6. With the aim of improving the position of persons with disabilities, complete and partial deprivation of business capacity should in the future be replaced by the institute of “Limitations of business capacity”, with the introduction of the obligation for the court to specify precisely the legal tasks that the ward cannot perform, the duration of the restriction, and the periodic review of such a decision.

7. It is stipulated that the decision regulating the manner of maintaining personal relations of the child with the parent with whom he does not live, that is, relatives and other persons with whom he has a specific connection, must contain the time, place and manner of maintaining personal relations, the frequency, the agreement relating to religious and national holidays, birthdays, annual vacations, etc. Bearing in mind that, in practice, until now it was often the case that the way of maintaining the relationship in these cases was arranged “by agreement”, especially if the spouses did not have professional help provided by an attorney at law during the divorce proceedings, we believe that this solution will contribute to greater security.

We would like to point out that only the proposed amendments to the Family Law are in question, which will be included in the parliamentary procedure.