{"id":7311,"date":"2026-10-18T21:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/?p=7311"},"modified":"2026-10-18T21:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:54:10","slug":"zrtva-administracije-u-dvije-drzave-uspjesno-okoncan-predmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/2026\/10\/zrtva-administracije-u-dvije-drzave-uspjesno-okoncan-predmet\/","title":{"rendered":"A VICTIM OF BUREAUCRACY ACROSS TWO STATES – successfully solved case"},"content":{"rendered":"After 36<\/strong> years of living without identification, citizenship, or official documents, the case of G.N. (27504)<\/strong> has been successfully concluded.<\/p>\n

G.N. was born in the Republic of Croatia in 1949 and lived in a small town in the Virovitica area from birth until December 1991. In December 1991, he fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where he remains to this day\u2014living in dire conditions, impoverished, ill, and on the brink of survival.<\/p>\n

He first contacted our office (CRP Sisak) in late 2022 through our partner organization in BiH, “Va\u0161a prava Prijedor” (Your Rights Prijedor). G.N. resides in the Gradi\u0161ka area of \u200b\u200bBiH as a refugee; however, he has been unable to formalize his legal status there because he lacks any identification documents or proof of citizenship. Consequently, for 36 years, G.N. lived as a stateless person without documentation. Given his poor health and living conditions, regularizing his status is crucial\u2014not only for exercising his civil and human rights but, most importantly, for accessing medical treatment.<\/p>\n

Although the client has his birth certificate, it was impossible to obtain a certificate of citizenship (*domovnica*) because the relevant civil registers had been destroyed. Furthermore, all previous attempts to secure a retroactive entry into the Republic of Croatia\u2019s register of citizens had failed. Therefore, through our collaboration with the organization “Va\u0161a prava BiH” (Prijedor office), on November 22, 2024, CRP Sisak submitted an application on behalf of the client to the Virovitica-Podravina Police Administration to establish Croatian citizenship.<\/p>\n

However, as the application was not being processed, we sent several reminders highlighting the client’s dire situation: he had been a refugee in Bosnia and Herzegovina for many years, was ill, and was unable to resolve his status there. We sent reminders on March 14, 2025, May 26, 2025, September 5, 2025, and April 9, 2026; furthermore, on April 14, 2026, we sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia requesting urgent resolution of the case, copying the Office of the Ombudswoman, the Office for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities (ULJPPNM), and the Croatian Parliament\u2019s Committee on Petitions and Complaints. Subsequently, the ULJPPNM and the Parliamentary Committee on Petitions and Complaints contacted the Ministry of the Interior, requesting that the case be reviewed and resolved. All this correspondence emphasized the client’s severe illness and the risk that he might die in Bosnia and Herzegovina without being able to receive a proper burial due to his lack of documentation.<\/p>\n

In response to all requests and reminders from our association and the other aforementioned stakeholders, the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia issued a letter on June 15, 2026, stating that they had reviewed the case file and conducted checks, determining that the client met the requirements for subsequent entry into the Croatian Citizenship Register pursuant to Article 30, Paragraph 1 of the Croatian Citizenship Act, and noting that even the client\u2019s son is registered in the Croatian Register of Citizens. Furthermore, they requested statements from two witnesses to verify the client\u2019s identity\u2014as the client lacks valid identification documents\u2014along with a copy of his refugee identification card. Following the submission of these documents and repeated follow-ups, including telephone calls, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) issued a letter dated September 22, 2026, confirming that G.N. had been registered in the Register of Citizens at the Orahovica Civil Registry Office on September 18, 2026, under a specific entry number.<\/p>\n

We wish to highlight the case of G.N. as one of the rare positive outcomes.<\/u> Due to the destruction of civil registry records, he had to wait 36 \u200b\u200byears for his citizenship status to be resolved; consequently, he lived without any documentation or citizenship, while also being a refugee in another country.<\/p>\n

The situation of G.N. illustrates the extent to which his unresolved citizenship status exposed him to multiple forms of exclusion, hindering his access to basic human rights\u2014in two different countries, no less.<\/p>\n

Through the persistence and collaboration of CRP Sisak and VP Prijedor, we succeeded in sparing at least one individual from discrimination\u2014pulling a life back from the brink of existence, a life that had been jeopardized for many years by the inefficiency and sluggishness of the system.<\/p>\n

Although the story of this client\u2019s case has a positive outcome, it must be emphasized that G.N. lost 36 years of his life waiting for his documents. In effect, the individual lost the best years of his life\u2014from age 42 to 75\u2014waiting for the resolution of his citizenship status and the issuance of documents; this took a severe toll on his overall well-being and was deeply demeaning to him as a human being. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Through this story, we once again highlight the complexity of administrative procedures, while emphasizing that support from civil society in such convoluted cases offers hope for a positive outcome.<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sisak, October 7, 2026\n\n

\n\n\t\t\n
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    After 36 years of living without identification, citizenship, or official documents, the case of G.N. (27504) has been successfully concluded. G.N. was born in the Republic of Croatia in 1949 and lived in a small …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7313,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions\/7313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crpsisak.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}