Anti-Discrimination Legal Action in Serbia and Montenegro

29 July 2004

On March 30, 2004, the ERRC, together with the Belgrade-based organisations Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) and Minority Rights Center (MRC), filed a legal case with the Municipal Court in northern Serbian town of Bačka Palanka against Mr Zeljko Kaludjerović for racial discrimina-tion on behalf of Ms Danica Jovanović and Ms Jelena Jovanović, both Romani women. Following a Romani women's rights seminar in the town of Feketic on June 13, 2003, Ms D. Jovanović and Ms J. Jovanović went to a cafe owned by Mr Kaludjerović's wife with some of the other participants. The women sat around two free tables where they drank drinks they paid for. After a short while, Mr Kaljudjerović went to the women and demanded that they all leave immediately. When Ms D. Jovanović asked if they could have the drinks they had already paid for or have their money returned, Mr Kaludjerović said, "No! Get out! What money? Get out, Gypsies!" In their complaint, the ERRC, HLC and MRC asked the court to order Mr Kaljudjerović to place a public apology in the daily newspaper Dnevnik, pay them compensation for the violation of their human dignity and other rights guaranteed by the Serbian Constitution, the Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro, and ratified interna-tional conventions, and to cease all racial or ethnic discrimination against guests of his wife's cafe. (ERRC, HLC, MRC)