Vasić pre-adoption assessment (June 1979) — compressed validation of the first identity substitution

The CSR relies on the social worker’s, educational specialist’s and psychologist’s suitability findings and lists their dates: 12, 18 and 19 June 1979. The linked original dossier contains those three reports, as well as the listed medical, Municipal Court and employment documents. It permits direct comparison of the favourable conclusions and the internal differences in schooling and parental biography.

Taking the provisions quoted above into account, **it is undisputed that the guardianship authority conducted the adoption procedure in accordance with all statutory rules**, which involved conducting the assessment of the suitability of the prospective adopters through findings and opinions prepared by a social worker, an educational specialist and a psychologist, as well as obtaining the documentation necessary to meet the statutory conditions under Article 41 of the aforementioned Act. **Evidence:** - Extract from the register of births, Novi Sad register, entry no. 2512 for 1974, dated 27 March 1979, - Extract from the register of marriages, Novi Sad register, Petrovaradin, entry no. 1 for 1962, - Medical certificate for Vasić Milorad, protocol no. 9/7, dated 11 June 1979, - Medical certificate for Vasić Gospava, protocol no. 805, dated 4 June 1979, - Certificate of the Municipal Court in Novi Sad, case no. Kr II 1353/79, dated 5 June 1979, for Vasić Gospava, - Certificate of the Municipal Court in Novi Sad, case no. Kr II 1354/79, dated 5 June 1979, for Vasić Milorad, - Certificate of employment and average income of the Novi Sad Construction Work Organization with unlimited joint and several liability of its Basic Organizations of Associated Labour, “Novograp”, no. 02-17/243, dated 6 June 1979, - Psychologist’s opinion dated 19 June 1979, - Social worker’s report dated 12 June 1979, - Educational specialist’s report dated 18 June 1979.

The June 1979 pedagogical opinion describes Milivoj’s father as unknown. In the 1977 judgment’s factual findings, Pavle is recorded as having a child with Miletić Cvita, with that child cared for by Kopljan Roža. The relation points to those two concrete father descriptions for comparison.

... 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 analysis explains its use of OCR reconstructions of the professional reports. Their existing dossier provides the actual scans and full translations, including the three reports dated 12, 18 and 19 June 1979.

The enclosed documents were reconstructed from photocopies of the originals using OCR. Although transcribed with the greatest care, minor errors in the interpretation of individual words are possible owing to the quality of the source. With each OCR version I also enclose a photocopy for comparison and confirmation of authenticity.

The judgment separately lists the favorable June 1979 opinions of Cvetko Ratković, Vera Radovanović and Milosava Gudelj. Their complete assessment dossier shows the actual observations and grounds each used. It is the source for checking those recommendations against the author’s childhood account and the later Vasić records.

For the full-adoption proceedings concerning the minor Miletić Milivoj, psychologist **Cvetko Ratković** prepared an opinion on **19 June 1979**, concluding that Vasić Milorad and Vasić Gospava would bring up the adopted child properly and that the child would be in an environment conducive to proper psychophysical development. For the full-adoption proceedings concerning the minor Miletić Milivoj, social worker **Vera Radovanović** prepared a report on **12 June 1979**, concluding that, on the basis of her examination of the available documentation and the information gathered about the social and moral standing and the material and housing conditions of Vasić Milorad and Vasić Gospava, she was of the opinion that they should be authorized to adopt the minor Milentić Milivoj. For the full-adoption proceedings concerning the minor Miletić Milivoj, pedagogue **Milosava Gudelj** prepared a report on **18 June 1979**, concluding that, after a comprehensive examination of all the circumstances, with particular attention to the educational conditions for the child’s development in the adopters’ family, she was of the opinion that adoption of the minor Milentić Milivoj by spouses Vasić Gospava and Milorad was justified and appropriate, that is, that personal and social interests existed in concluding the adoption.

The court sees no inconsistencies in the professional findings. The linked file contains the complete June 1979 reports by Vera Radovanović, Milosava Gudelj and Cvetko Ratković, allowing the specific origins, family circumstances and predicted environment to be compared with that blanket appellate conclusion.

proceedings and the plaintiff’s own testimony show that, after that decision was set aside, a new decision was issued which did not establish that status, although the court had sought information from the guardianship body. Therefore, it could not in any event be considered that, when the full adoption was established on 21 June 1979, the plaintiff had a living or known father. On the other hand, in the adoption proceedings the guardianship body recorded that the plaintiff’s mother had for a long time been at an unknown place of residence. In his testimony the plaintiff stated that he had seen his mother several times in childhood and never thereafter, and that he had lived with the late Pavle until his death. From that it follows that the plaintiff’s mother could not have been available to the guardianship body to consent to adoption. This is also supported by the circumstance that even years later the guardianship body could not find any information about the plaintiff’s mother. Thus the plaintiff’s grounds of appeal alleging that it is unclear whether his case was brought under paragraph 1 or paragraph 4 of the cited provision are not acceptable, bearing in mind that, in the situation described, the conditions for adoption relating to the status of the plaintiff’s parents were in any event met. The first-instance court correctly finds that the guardianship body established fulfilment of all the other conditions necessary for full adoption, which also concern assessment of the prospective adopters by professionals—an educational specialist, psychologist, social worker and doctor. This court finds no inconsistencies in their findings, and the grounds of appeal advanced in that respect are not acceptable.

The June 1979 pedagogical opinion calls Milivoj’s father unknown. In the probate minutes Helena Uzelac names Milivoj, reports the deceased’s acknowledgment and requests a guardian to protect his interests; the O.196/79 ruling then lists Milivoj with a one-quarter share. The relation compares that probate record with the assessment’s parental description.

Attorney Helena Uzelac states that, besides the reported heirs, there is also the minor Milivoj Miletić, aged 5, for whom it has not been judicially established that the deceased was his father, but the deceased did acknowledge him, and the minor Milivoj is currently with his grandmother and grandfather, that is, with the parents of the deceased. Therefore, in accordance with that, it should be obtained from the Centre for Social Work that a guardian be appointed for the protection of his interests.

The author identifies Vera Radovanović’s 12 June 1979 recommendation of the Vasić couple. The linked assessment dossier permits checking that recommendation alongside the other professional reports.

## Source page 6 - records my crying at “Milivoj”; - instructs the foster carer to call me by the imposed name; - records that I soon “declare that my name is now Mišo”; - takes me into full-adoption proceedings with the Vasić family, with the ultimate objective of making me Vasić Milan. Thus, in its own official notes, the Centre recorded the entire process of psychologically preparing a child for the erasure of his original name and identity. This is not a neutral social intervention; it is the engineering of a child’s identity. ### The role of social worker Vera Radovanović and the conflict of interest (1979–1984) A further level of the Centre’s self-incrimination is visible in the fact that the same person — social worker and head of guardianship Vera Radovanović — simultaneously, in this case: - constructs the narrative about the mother and disputes my father’s paternity; - recommends specific adoptive parents for me in particular; - is appointed as an “ad hoc guardian”; - in that role, gives consent to full adoption; - and then, several years later, also participates in manufacturing the first adoptive parent’s “consent” to a new adoption of the same child. The chronology is indisputable: - **8 April 1979:** Vera Radovanović maintains the monitoring sheet for no. 3871/79: she describes my mother as “prone to prostitution, alcohol and wandering”, relativizes Pal Lakatoš’s paternity (“claims to be the father”), but simultaneously records that I am well cared for, tidy and without behavioural problems at my aunt Julka Vizmeg’s home — she is my father’s sister. - **12 June 1979:** As social worker and head of guardianship, she draws up the report on the suitability of Vasić Gospava and Milorad, in which, on the basis of housing, material and “moral” conditions, she explicitly concludes that “VASIĆ GOSPAVA and MILORAD be approved to adopt minor MILIVOJ MILETIĆ”. Thus, it was already being determined that precisely this married couple should adopt precisely me. - **20 June 1979:** By decision no. Up.03-506/79, Vera Radovanović is formally appointed ad hoc guardian “for the purpose of giving consent to the adoption of minor Miletić Milivoj”. The person who had already recommended the adoption now receives the role of the child’s “neutral” protector. - **21 June 1979:** In the minutes of full adoption, drawn up before the guardianship body, Vera Radovanović appears precisely in that role — as ad hoc guardian — and gives consent to full adoption, after which it is stated that my future name will be Vasić Milan. - **12 September 1984:** As social worker at the Centre for Social Work in Novi Sad, she draws up the minutes of the first adoptive parent Vasić Milorad “giving consent” to the adoption of minor Vasić Milan. In that act, the first adoptive parent is effectively treated as a father who “gives his son for adoption”, although I had already been fully adopted once, in 1979, so that the same official actively participates in the unlawful second adoption of the same child.

The appeal expressly challenges formulaic and mutually inconsistent professional assessments. The linked June 1979 assessment dossier contains the three reports concerning the Vasić couple; it is distinct from the later Petrović assessment.

The court was required to explain how a new adoption in 1984 was possible if a valid full adoption already existed in 1979, one that could not be dissolved under the law then in force. By failing to do so, it failed to apply substantive law to a decisive fact that directly undermines the conclusion that the first adoption was lawful. #### 4. Wrongly reducing the dispute to a mere family-law framework The court treated the case as a typical family dispute, although it is a dispute against the guardianship body concerning the lawfulness of its historical and present conduct, identity, origins, inheritance status and the consequences of an administrative change of identity. The first-instance court thereby wrongly marginalised the identity dimension of the dispute, although precisely that dimension determines a proper understanding of the legal significance of the contested adoption and the subsequent institutional maintenance of its consequences. ### VI. INCORRECT ASSESSMENT OF EVIDENCE The first-instance court did not critically assess the contents of the archive documentation. Instead, it effectively equated its formal authenticity and official provenance with the truth of its contents and the lawfulness of the conduct of the body that created it. It accepted particularly uncritically the documents created by the very body whose conduct is contested. Nor did the first-instance court critically assess the fact that the defendant’s internal documentation contains a degrading narrative permeated with value judgments and sex-based and cultural prejudices about my biological mother. Instead, it effectively accepted that content without genuine legal and evidentiary scrutiny. It thereby did more than uncritically adopt the defendant’s internal documentation: it indirectly provided a legitimising framework for descriptions contaminated by value judgments that could not be treated as a neutral and reliable basis for judicial conclusions. The contradictions and problems concerning the following were not properly assessed: - the monitoring sheet of contacts and casework; - social worker Vera Radovanović’s report; - formulaic and mutually inconsistent professional assessments; - moral characterisations of the mother based on “consultation with neighbours”, without a serious evidentiary basis; - the fact that CSR’s own internal documentation confirms in several places that the child was well cared for, tidy, staying with paternal relatives and undergoing accelerated psychological preparation for an identity change. In other words, the court did not compare and weigh conflicting evidence, but privileged the defendant’s internal documentation in advance. ### VII. DECISION ON COSTS I also challenge the decision that each party is to bear its own costs.