F.V. was born around 1983; it is assumed that she is originally from Kosovo or Albania; she is a stateless person and without any documents. The client came to the Republic of Croatia more than twenty years ago and has been residing in the territory of the Republic of Croatia ever since.
The first contact with F.V. was recorded in Italy in 2000, when she was found on the street by Reto Center employees. Persuaded by Reto Center employees, the client was placed in a commune in Milan for treatment. After some time, she left the commune and was lost to all trace until 2002, when she was found without documents in the Republic of Croatia in Pula, where she ended up serving a prison sentence for theft. After serving her sentence, she was placed in the Reception Center for Foreigners in Ježevo, where the social services appointed her a guardian for the recognition of asylum status, which status she was refused in 2005. After Ježevo, the client again served her prison sentence in the Svetošimunska Prison Hospital, from which she was transferred to the Psychiatric Hospital in Rab (20 Dec 2006), and remained in the aforementioned institution until 7/2016. Due to the decision of the competent Ministry that they no longer wanted to finance her treatment, F.V. was transferred from the Rab Hospital to the Reception Center for Asylum Seekers in Kutina. After that, she was transferred to the Hotel Porin reception center in Zagreb, and in 4/2018 she was granted accommodation in the Home for Adults in Bidružica, where she is still staying today.
Therefore, the client had accommodation and treatment in the state institution on Rab for a full ten years and then in the home for mentally ill adults for eight years, therefore for twenty years the state system provided her with accommodation, without any of the competent institutions ever making an effort to resolve the issue of her status and documents. F.V. is still legally invisible because she is a stateless person and without any documents.
Our organization has been providing the client with continuous legal and humanitarian assistance since 2016, when she was staying at the Asylum Seekers Reception Center in Kutina, and we helped her initiate an administrative dispute in the case of granting asylum.
In addition to regulating the asylum status, which ended negatively, a procedure for granting temporary residence was initiated for the client. F.V. submitted a request for granting temporary residence for humanitarian reasons in 2017, which resulted in a procedure that lasted almost ten years. Namely, after the request for temporary residence submitted in 2017, the first decision was made in 2020, which was negative for the client – the request was rejected and she was ordered to leave the Republic of Croatia, and which was appealed. The appeal was also rejected, and an administrative dispute was initiated in 3/2021. The administrative dispute was ruled in 7/2022, and the same verdict annulled the decision of the Ministry of the Interior, and the case was returned for a new procedure, in which a new decision was awaited for a long time. After several urgent letters, the client was invited to provide additional statements in 5/2023, so that in 6/2023 a new decision of the Ministry of the Interior was issued, terminating the foreigner’s legal residence and ordering her to leave the Republic of Croatia. The appeal was filed again, and in addition, we also addressed numerous institutions (e.g. the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities, the Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities).
In 11/2023, by a decision of the Ministry of the Interior, I. Appeals Commission, the client’s appeal was rejected, and a new administrative dispute was initiated on 24 Nov 2023. The first hearing in the administrative dispute was on 17 Sept 2024, and a judgment was rendered rejecting F.V.’s claim for temporary residence, with the explanation that there was a security risk and that the client did not respect the legal order of the Republic of Croatia. The same judgment was appealed to the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia in 10/2024, and in 3/2025, the appeal against the judgment was rejected. Therefore, on 2 April 2025, a constitutional complaint was filed with the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, which has not yet been resolved.
Therefore, this brief chronology shows the illogicality of the proceedings, because the proceedings have been going on in circles for almost ten years without results, and this is a person who has been placed through the system. On the one hand, the system provides F.V. with accommodation in its institution, and on the other hand, it considers her “dangerous to the legal order and security of the Republic of Croatia” and does not want to recognize her as a foreigner on temporary residence, and throughout all these years she could have already had regulated permanent residence, which would at least give her the right to health insurance and social assistance.
In the meantime, under the pressure of such a very difficult situation, the client has attempted suicide several times, because she is lost, has no documents, no income, no health insurance, cannot exercise any rights from the social welfare system, and all of this has had a very bad impact on her already impaired mental and health. The client’s physical health is also seriously endangered, because she has several diagnoses, including a tumor, which are not being treated at all because the client has no health insurance.
Since this is a very vulnerable person, especially a person without citizenship/nationality and without any documents, and is placed in a state institution, she is increasingly ill and endangered and as such is not at all a danger to the legal order and security of the Republic of Croatia, the state system should certainly have granted her the status of a stateless person, regulated her temporary residence and provided her with health insurance, which is the minimum rights that such a person should have, because we live in the 21st century, and some elementary human rights have been reduced below all civilizational minimums.
The Republic of Croatia is a signatory to all relevant conventions and documents, with an emphasis on the Convention on the Legal Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Both conventions, as well as all other regulations in the Republic of Croatia, including those on combating discrimination and respecting human rights, have been violated in this case.
The CRP has repeatedly addressed all competent offices, ministries and the President of the Republic of Croatia for any assistance, but there has been no reaction.
In Sisak, 6 May 2026
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