Exclusion of Milivoj Miletić from O.196/79 — Pervaz appeal, adoption secrecy and court legalization of contaminated material

Pavle's personal acknowledgment recorded by the court. The order of 9 January 1980 expressly requires evidence of acknowledgment in a public instrument, before the registrar or in a will, or of parenthood established by a final court judgment. The earlier P-1642/76 court record contains Pavle's own statement, “I fathered a son with her” (English transcript, line 652), followed by the court's factual finding that he lived with Miletić Cvita, with whom he fathered a child cared for by Kopljan Roža (line 722). These are a personal acknowledgment recorded in a court public instrument and a court-accepted factual record, directly relevant to the proof route ordered in 1980. The claim that Pavle did not acknowledge the child cannot be read while disregarding those judicial records. This comparison links the recorded personal statement and factual findings; it does not relabel the divorce judgment's operative part as a separate paternity judgment.

... with one grade of elementary school. We did not agree even on economic matters. In 1968 she ordered me to take care of the land, while she would take care of the grain mill, and so we also divided economically at that time. She charged me for bran for the pigs, although the corn came from our land and the mill was ours; besides that, I brought fattened pigs home. This relationship also affected our children, so when they were on the land in 1971, I paid them for seven days as day laborers. In 1973 we stopped living a sexual life. I rarely came home. After leaving the hospital, abandoned by everyone, while the children were on school holidays and I was still not healed, I began living with another woman, a laborer on the land. I fathered a son with her. After the expropriation of the land by the Novi Sad Municipal Assembly, for which I received compensation of 120,000 dinars, in March 1976 I bought two jutro of land—an orchard—and a building in Bački Vinogradi for 245,000 dinars. I have still not paid the purchase price. I am ill, I pay for the cultivation of the land—the orchard—and I do as much as I can around the sale and transport of fruit. Since I switched to working the land, from 1968 onward, the plaintiff did not bring me food nor did she wash for me, and from 1973 onward I did not even change clothes anymore. We washed on the land. We also cooked there, and Cvita, the woman with whom I had begun living, also helped with that.

The court's factual finding on Pavle, Cvita and their child. The order of 9 January 1980 expressly requires evidence of acknowledgment in a public instrument, before the registrar or in a will, or of parenthood established by a final court judgment. The earlier P-1642/76 court record contains Pavle's own statement, “I fathered a son with her” (English transcript, line 652), followed by the court's factual finding that he lived with Miletić Cvita, with whom he fathered a child cared for by Kopljan Roža (line 722). These are a personal acknowledgment recorded in a court public instrument and a court-accepted factual record, directly relevant to the proof route ordered in 1980. The claim that Pavle did not acknowledge the child cannot be read while disregarding those judicial records. This comparison links the recorded personal statement and factual findings; it does not relabel the divorce judgment's operative part as a separate paternity judgment.

... from 1968 onward, the plaintiff took over the economic management connected with the grain mill, while the defendant cultivated land about 4 km from Novi Sad. They completely separated their assets and behaved toward one another as though they were strangers (the plaintiff sold bran to the defendant, sold him meat, etc.). The defendant came home very rarely; in the final years the plaintiff did not cook for him, nor wash for him, so he organized all of this on the land, building a hut of wattle and mud, unsuitable for winter habitation. In recent years, the plaintiff did not even allow the defendant into the house, and he slept in the stable when he came from Bački Vinogradi. From the compensation for the expropriated land, the defendant bought two jutro of vineyard and a house in Bački Vinogradi, where he engages in fruit growing, mainly by leasing out the orchard, because he is ill and a serious heart patient. After the first hospitalization, because of heart disease, abandoned and without visits, while his brother managed the cultivation of the land, he began living with the laborer Miletić Cvita, with whom he also fathered a child. This child is being cared for by the parties' daughter, Kopljan Roža, for which the defendant pays 1,000 dinars per month and also provides foodstuffs.

The judgment summarizes the 1979 declaration of heirship and the 9 January 1980 appeal order in an awkwardly repeated sentence. The complete probate-exclusion package shows the actual appellate directions, including the inquiry into acknowledgment in a public document. It allows that summary to be checked against the source decisions.

By Municipal Court in Novi Sad ruling no. O-196/79 of **23 November 1979**, the plaintiff, then a minor, was declared an heir of the late Pavle Lakatoš. An appeal against that ruling was filed on **12 December 1979**, on the ground that the plaintiff, then a minor, did not fall within the class of statutory or testamentary heirs. By ruling case no. Gž.11/80 of **9 January 1980**, the Higher Court in Novi Sad allowed the appeal and set aside Municipal Court in Novi Sad ruling no. O-196/79 of 23 November 1979; the plaintiff, then a minor, was declared an heir of the late Pavle Lakatoš.

Annex 1 reproduces the probate appeal sequence already partly archived. This submission additionally contains the first page of the 18 April 1980 hearing and the 4 February 1981 costs/payment order; the older archive remains available in its own form.

## Source page 27 # ANNEX 1 ### Portions of appeal proceedings Gž 11/80 (O.196/79) This annex contains portions of appeal proceedings Gž 11/80 before the Higher Court in Novi Sad that are relevant to this case, up to the point when Milivoj Miletić ceases to be among the heirs in probate proceedings O.196/79. The annex is structured as follows: - first come photocopies of the relevant portions of file Gž 11/80, as they appear in the original; - then, on the following pages, comes the typed text — a transcription — of those portions, obtained following OCR analysis, with brief technical notes only where handwriting or printing is difficult to read. The transcription serves solely to facilitate reading and does not change the contents of the original documents.

The revision cites the later probate appeal track. Its wording “ne protive” differs from Pervaz’s actual “ne traže” on original PDF page 2. The source comparison is explicit; both documents retain their own wording.

They invoked it when it supported the 1979 outcome and ignored it when the same file revealed the unlawful structure of the proceedings. ### 8. The second-instance court incorrectly assessed the inheritance and paternal trail as legally irrelevant background The lawfulness of the 1979 full adoption cannot be assessed in isolation from the parallel probate proceedings after the death of Pavle Lakatoš, in which the minor Milivoj Miletić appears as a child whose rights and interests must be protected. In this context, the following facts are decisive: - in the record of 19 March 1979, the minor Milivoj Miletić is recorded as a child staying with his grandparents, the parents of the deceased Pavle Lakatoš; - on 20 July 1979, the Municipal Court in Novi Sad seeks appointment of a guardian to protect his rights and interests in the probate proceedings; - by the decision of 23 November 1979 he is declared an heir after Pavle Lakatoš; - in appeal proceedings Gž 11/80, the other heirs possess information about the full-adoption proceedings, including the assertion that the adopters do not object to Milivoj inheriting from anyone, and use that material against his inheritance position. This shows that the case files simultaneously contained: - an adoption track portraying the child as eligible for complete displacement of identity; - a probate track in which the same child appears as Milivoj Miletić, connected with Pavle Lakatoš’s paternal line and the exercise of inheritance rights. The Court of Appeal reduced this conflict to the subsequent setting aside of the inheritance decision and thereby avoided assessing its significance for the lawfulness of the full adoption of 21 June 1979. This is an incorrect application of substantive law: the conditions for full adoption must be assessed against the legal framework and facts at the time it was established, not against the later removal of one of the traces revealing those facts. ### 9. The second-instance court did not assess the legal significance of Articles 35, 37 and 38 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina Article 35 SAPVAA provides that the report establishing full adoption contains information about the birth entry being cancelled and information for the adoptee’s new birth entry, identifying the adopters as parents. Article 37 provides that full adoption terminates the statutory rights and duties between the adoptee and his blood relatives. Article 38 provides that determination of the paternity and maternity of a fully adopted child is not permitted. These provisions show the actual effect of full adoption. They confirm that the contested act did not merely change a surname or family placement.

The earlier O.196/79 record identifies Milivoj as a son and awards him one quarter of the estate on 23 November 1979. The same file contains Helena Uzelac’s statement of the father’s acknowledgment and the court’s request for a guardian to protect his rights. This is the positive paternal and heirship record preceding the appeal and exclusion documented here.

4. minor Milivoj Miletić, son, guardian attorney Miloš Lisica ## III The estate described under point I is inherited by: 1. Róža Kopljan — 1/4 share 2. Irena Beker — 1/4 share 3. minor Istvan Lakatoš — 1/4 share 4. minor Milivoj Miletić — 1/4 share

Vera’s 21 June 1979 entry records receipt of the guardian-appointment decision and states that Milivoj had been adopted and would be handed over to the adopters that day; the 5 July entry records delivery of the adoption decision. These parallel social-welfare entries can be compared with the probate court’s 20 July request, which still describes Milivoj as staying with the father’s parents.

21 June 1979. Receipt of the decision on appointment as guardian for consent to adoption. Visit to the foster family. Counseling of the foster mother. The foster mother was informed that Milivoj had been adopted and that he would today be handed over to the adoptive parents. Counseling of the child. Milivoj was told that he would go home to mother and father. There were no problems with separating the child. Visit to the Children's Dispensary. Counseling of the physician. Obtaining the health file and vaccination card and handing them over to the adoptive parents. 5 July 1979. Decision on adoption delivered.

The record of 21 June 1979 declares full adoption of the same Miletić Milivoj by Milorad and Gospava Vasić, assigns the name Vasić Milan and orders the adopters’ particulars to be entered as parental particulars. This is the actual adoption and identity act to read alongside Pervaz’s appeal, which invokes the full-adoption proceeding against Milivoj’s existing heirship position.

That the full adoption has been established by which VASIĆ MILORAD, born on 15 February 1941 in the place of Osječani, Municipality of Doboj, and VASIĆ GOSPAVA, born on 21 August 1932 in the place of D. Klakar, Municipality of Doboj, both residing in Budisava, Petefi Šandora Street No. 52, ADOPT THE MINOR MILETIĆ MILIVOJ. The adopted minor Miletić Milivoj shall hereafter be named VASIĆ MILAN. The report on the full adoption shall be delivered by the Guardianship Authority to the competent registrar for the purpose of entering the adopters' particulars as the parents of the minor Miletić Milivoj.

The appeal invokes Gž 11/80 and the private heirs’ access to information about the adoption and the adopters’ statement concerning inheritance. This relation connects that allegation to the appellate and subsequent probate records concerning the removal from heirship.

In other words, the first-instance court formally cited Article 30 but did not establish the decisive facts without which that provision cannot be applied: neither the legal framework governing this particular case, nor the duration and course of the search, nor a lawful basis for substituting the special-purpose guardian’s consent for that of a known mother. #### 3. Pavle Lakatoš and the traces of paternity were not properly assessed The court reduced the issue of Pavle Lakatoš to the simple observation that paternity had not been judicially established. This bypassed the substance of the matter. The proceedings raised and documented traces showing that Pavle Lakatoš: - acknowledged the child in the context of divorce proceedings; - that the family knew of the child’s existence; - that I lived within my paternal family circle; - that I was staying with my paternal grandmother and grandfather; - that my status as the deceased’s son born outside marriage was discussed in the probate proceedings; - that at one point I was even declared an heir. The court did not assess the significance of these traces for whether the administrative formula “father unknown” reflected the actual facts, or represented an administrative reduction of a more complex family and inheritance reality to facilitate full adoption. #### 4. Probate proceedings O.196/79 were not properly assessed The probate proceedings were not incidental background, but one of the central pieces of evidence. They contain: - the record of 19 March 1979, stating that the minor Milivoj was staying with his grandparents, namely the deceased’s parents; - the letter of 20 July 1979, requesting the appointment of a guardian to protect his rights and interests in the probate proceedings; - appellate proceedings Gž 11/80, showing that private heirs possessed information that full-adoption proceedings had taken place before SIZ and that the adopters had stated they did not seek for Milivoj to inherit from anyone. The court did not explain how the same child could exist in one legal channel as Miletić Milivoj, a potential heir of Pavle Lakatoš, and in another as a child without parental care, ready for full adoption and the rewriting of his identity into another family. Nor did the judgment explain why it did not consider that material decisive, although it directly concerns identity, inheritance status and the timing of institutional action towards the child. #### 5. The second adoption in 1984 was left without legal explanation The judgment states that I was adopted by the Petrović couple in 1984 and was assigned their surname, but does not clarify how this was possible at all if a full adoption had already been lawfully established in 1979.