Revision of 29 May 2026: the appellate judgment confronted with the 1976 law and the identity evidence

This event records the revision dated 29 May 2026 and its alternative requests: reversal granting nullity, or quashing and remittal. The document date is not a verified filing stamp.

REMIT the case for retrial before the first- or second-instance court, clearly directing the lower courts that in the renewed proceedings they must answer the following questions: - whether this case falls under Article 30(1) or Article 30(4) of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina; - whether the statutory conditions of the six-month period and an unsuccessful search for the mother have been proven; - whether there was lawful prior consent from the known and living mother, or a lawful basis for any substitution of that consent; - the legal significance of Article 42 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina regarding the impossibility of arbitrarily applying Article 5 to full adoption; - the legal significance of the second adoption in 1984 in relation to Article 40 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina; - the legal significance of Vera Radovanović’s conflict of interest; - the legal significance of probate proceedings O.196/79, appeal proceedings Gž 11/80 and divorce file P-1642/76 for assessment of the lawfulness of the administrative formula “father unknown”; - whether the full-adoption record, by its own contents accepted by the courts, directly conflicts with Article 34 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina; - the legal significance of Articles 35, 37, 38 and 40 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina regarding the objective function of full adoption as a mechanism for cancelling the old birth entry, making a new entry identifying the adopters as parents, terminating rights and duties towards blood relatives, prohibiting determination of paternity and maternity, and making that legal situation indissoluble; - whether Article 8 of the European Convention and Article 78 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia must apply in this case, given that it concerns the right to identity, origins, personal history, family continuity, prohibition of forced assimilation and protection from state maintenance of the administrative severing of original identity. **Schedule of costs:** - For preparation of this appeal on points of law: RSD 55,000.00, pursuant to the Tariff of Fees and Reimbursement of Costs for Advocates’ Work. Kragujevac, **29 May 2026** __________________________________________ **Nikolaj Petronijević, advocate**

The revision directly challenges Gž2 211/26. Page 13 identifies the appellate attribution of Article 30 conditions to Article 31; pages 5–7 challenge “in any event” and the absence of a specified consent/search basis.

No such consent exists. The second-instance court attempts to fill that gap by stating that the mother “could not have been available to give consent”, while the ad hoc guardian Vera Radovanović consented to adoption. Under the full-adoption regime, however, it is not enough to establish that somebody else signed a declaration. It must be established that the law permits such substitution. Article 42 SAPVAA, governing which provisions of the general adoption regime also apply, as appropriate, to full adoption, does not refer to Article 5, which concerns a guardian’s consent in place of a parent’s in certain situations under the general regime. This means that Article 30(4) remains a specific, strict rule for full adoption. Where one parent is dead or unknown, the other parent’s prior consent is required. The Court of Appeal identified no statutory provision permitting substitution of the known and living mother’s consent with that of an ad hoc guardian under the full-adoption regime. Article 30(4), read with Article 41 SAPVAA, was thereby incorrectly applied. ### 5. The second-instance court confused Articles 30 and 31 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina In the part of its reasoning rejecting the central ground of appeal, the Court of Appeal states: > “During the proceedings and in his grounds of appeal, the plaintiff mainly argues that the conditions in Article 31 of the aforementioned Act were not fulfilled for establishing his full adoption on 21 June 1979 (...). Paragraph 1 of that provision stipulates that a child below the age of five whose parents are dead or unknown may be fully adopted...” This is incorrect. The content the Court of Appeal attributes to Article 31 is actually the content of Article 30(1) SAPVAA. Article 31 does not govern the status of the child’s parents. It provides that full adoption may be established only by both spouses. This error is not an insignificant technical slip in a peripheral part of the reasoning. It occurs precisely where the second-instance court attempts to answer the main ground of appeal concerning incorrect application of Article 30. A court that rejects the central ground of appeal concerning Article 30 by incorrectly identifying the provision itself, and then avoids determining whether it applies paragraph 1 or paragraph 4, has not correctly applied substantive law. ### 6. The second-instance court did not assess the legal significance of the second adoption in 1984 in relation to Article 40 and the status consequences of full adoption under Articles 35, 37 and 38 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina Article 40 SAPVAA provides:

The revision relies on the appeal dated 18 March 2026 and asks whether its decisive grounds were answered under CPA Article 396(1). The two remedies remain separate documents and dates.

- refused to determine in law whether the particular case falls under Article 30(1) or Article 30(4) SAPVAA; - replaced the statutory conditions of Article 30 with the formula that they “had in any event been fulfilled”; - disregarded the absence of the required six-month period and a specific search for the mother; - accepted substitution of the known and living mother’s consent by that of an ad hoc guardian without clarifying the basis for such substitution; - completely disregarded that Article 42 SAPVAA does not provide for application of Article 5 under the full-adoption regime; - refused to assess the legal consequence of the fact that another married couple adopted the plaintiff again in 1984; - completely disregarded Vera Radovanović’s conflict of interest; - accepted the factually incorrect assertion that Pavle Lakatoš did not acknowledge paternity; - reduced Pavle Lakatoš’s paternal trail and probate case O.196/79 to the formal assertion that paternity had not been judicially established; - disregarded that, alongside the full-adoption proceedings, an active judicial and inheritance trail existed for the plaintiff as Milivoj Miletić in the probate proceedings following Pavle Lakatoš’s death; - ignored the direct conflict between the contents of the full-adoption record and Article 34 SAPVAA; - failed to assess the objective function and meaning of Articles 35, 37, 38 and 40 SAPVAA in this particular case. The Court of Appeal thus failed to conduct a genuine, substantive judicial review of the lawfulness of the contested full adoption. Instead of reviewing it, it judicially verified the outcome of the guardianship authority’s actions in 1979, just as the first-instance court had done. ## 3. SUBSTANTIAL VIOLATION OF CIVIL PROCEDURE ### 1. The second-instance court did not genuinely assess the essential grounds of appeal Article 396(1) CPA requires the second-instance court, in the reasoning of its decision, to assess the essential grounds of appeal and state the reasons it considered of its own motion. The right to a reasoned judicial decision is an integral part of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In this case the Court of Appeal failed to fulfil that obligation. In his appeal of 18 March 2026, the plaintiff expressly and in detail pointed out that the first-instance court had failed to provide legally grounded answers to the following questions: - whether the particular case falls under Article 30(1) or Article 30(4) SAPVAA;

The revision seeks reversal of the appellate decision and alteration of the Basic Court judgment of 9 February 2026, alternatively quashing both. Its quoted proposed disposition is not a judgment already granting the claim.

- proceedings in which the same official constructs the case, selects the adopters, assumes the role of ad hoc guardian and consents to adoption. The Supreme Court therefore now has two legal paths. The first is to allow the appeal on points of law, set aside the Court of Appeal’s judgment and stop continued judicial maintenance of a decision that cannot withstand the text of the law, the documents in the file and the Convention standard of the right to identity. The second is to uphold that judgment and thereby assume present-day responsibility for maintaining it through the highest ordinary judicial authority of the Republic of Serbia. In that second case, the Supreme Court’s judgment will not be merely the dismissal of an extraordinary legal remedy. It will become the highest domestic judicial document by which the Republic of Serbia, despite examination of all the evidence clearly indicating the nullity of full adoption, confirms the legal consequences of administratively severing the identity, origins, paternal line, inheritance position, blood relationships, legal route to biological origins and linguistic-national continuity of the child who in 1979 was Milivoj Miletić. ## 7. REQUEST For all these reasons, the plaintiff requests that the Supreme Court of the Republic of Serbia: 1. ALLOW the plaintiff’s appeal on points of law; 2. VARY the contested judgment of the Court of Appeal in Novi Sad Gž2 211/26 of 22 April 2026 by ALLOWING the plaintiff’s appeal, VARYING the judgment of the Basic Court in Novi Sad P2.1435/2024 of 9 February 2026 and ruling as follows: **I.** The plaintiff’s claim is GRANTED: the full adoption established and declared by the decision of the Self-Managing Community of Interest for Social Protection in Novi Sad, no. UP.03-507/79 of 21 June 1979 in Novi Sad, whereby Vasić Milorad, born on 15 February 1941 in Osiječani, municipality of Doboj, and Vasić Gospava, born on 21 August 1932 in D. Klakar, municipality of Doboj, both residing in Budisava, Petefi Šandora 52, adopt the minor Miletić Milivoj, and whereby the adopted minor Miletić Milivoje receives the new name Vasić Milan, is annulled as absolutely void. **II.** The defendant is ORDERED, immediately on receipt of the judgment, to issue a decision annulling the decision of the Self-Managing Community of Interest for Social Protection in Novi Sad, no. UP.03-507/79 of 21 June 1979, authorising subsequent entry in the birth register of the information identifying the adopters Vasić Milorad and Vasić Gospava of Budisava as parents of the fully adopted child—the plaintiff—and, through that annulment, to restore the first birth entry of the fully adopted child—the plaintiff. 3. ORDER the defendant to reimburse the plaintiff’s litigation costs; **or** 1. ALLOW the plaintiff’s appeal on points of law; 2. SET ASIDE the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Novi Sad Gž2 211/26 of 22 April 2026 and the judgment of the Basic Court in Novi Sad P2.1435/2024 of 9 February 2026, and

The original 1976 law permits direct checking of the revision’s distinct arguments about conditions, consent cross-references, indissolubility and changes to identity records. Each actual article cited is mapped separately.

The lawfulness of the full adoption of 21 June 1979 must be assessed under the substantive law in force when that adoption was established. That law is the 1976 Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina. The lower courts had to assess the contested act against the conditions for full adoption then in force, not against subsequently devised justifications, general formulas or a present-day interest in maintaining the act’s consequences. The central provisions in these proceedings are therefore: - Article 30; - Article 31; - Article 34; - Article 35; - Article 37; - Article 38; - Article 40; - Article 41; - Article 42; - Article 2 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina. ### 2. The second-instance court incorrectly applied Articles 30 and 41 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina Article 41 SAPVAA expressly provides that full adoption is void if, when it was established, the conditions in Article 30(1), (2) and (4), and Article 31 of that Act, were not fulfilled. Correct application of Article 30 was therefore central to the decision in this case. The Court of Appeal did not apply Article 30 correctly. It effectively neutralised that article. Instead of determining whether this case fell under paragraph 1 or paragraph 4 and checking fulfilment of that paragraph’s conditions, the court wrote that the conditions “had in any event been fulfilled”. Such a construction is not an application of the law. Article 30(1) and Article 30(4) govern different legal situations. Article 30(1) concerns a child below the age of five whose parents are dead or unknown, or have abandoned the child and whose whereabouts remain unestablished after six months from abandonment. Article 30(4) concerns the situation where one parent is dead or unknown; in that situation full adoption may be established only with the other parent’s prior consent. These two provisions are not interchangeable. They do not prescribe the same prerequisites.

The revision identifies Pavle’s statement at the 26 October 1977 hearing and the divorce judgment’s factual account naming Cvita. This supports comparison of personal acknowledgment with the appellate assertion and the separate issue of a paternity-status judgment.

- that the initial probate decision was subsequently set aside. The first assertion is factually incorrect and directly contradicts judicial file P-1642/76. We again stress that determining paternity is not the subject of these proceedings. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal plainly distorted the facts in the case file when its reasoning stated that Pavle Lakatoš had not acknowledged the child. In divorce proceedings before the District Court in Novi Sad, P-1642/76, at the main hearing of 26 October 1977, Pavle Lakatoš, examined as a party, stated that after leaving hospital he began living with another woman, an agricultural worker, and that he “had a son with her”; he then identified that woman as Cvita. This fact did not remain merely an oral statement by him. In its judgment P-1642/76 of 26 October 1977, the District Court in Novi Sad stated in its factual findings that Pavle Lakatoš began living with the worker Miletić Cvita, with whom he had a child. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal could not truthfully write that Pavle Lakatoš “did not acknowledge paternity”. If it considered this legally relevant, it could have stated that paternity had not been established by a separate decision. That is not, however, the same as asserting that Pavle Lakatoš had not acknowledged that the child was his. Despite the express ground of appeal that Pavle Lakatoš acknowledged the child in the divorce context, the Court of Appeal asserted the opposite in the contested judgment, further distorting the actual content of the appeal and the facts. The plaintiff did not argue that a final decision had established him as Pavle Lakatoš’s heir. He argued that the probate files, divorce file P-1642/76 and other judicial documents show that the administrative formula “father unknown” was not a neutral description of an absence of information, but a reduction of the real paternal and inheritance trail existing in state files and directly relevant to the lawfulness of full adoption. The Court of Appeal avoided this legal problem on two levels: - first, it made the factually incorrect assertion that Pavle Lakatoš had not acknowledged paternity; - then, it replaced the question of the lawfulness of the administrative classification “father unknown” with the question whether paternity had already been established by a final decision at that time. These are different questions. In doing so, the Court of Appeal did not assess the ground of appeal as actually made. It first distorted it factually, then recast it into a weaker version, and then rejected it. ## 4. INCORRECT APPLICATION OF SUBSTANTIVE LAW ### 1. The substantive law in force when full adoption was established applies to this case

Probate O.196/79 preserves the March record, July guardianship request and November inheritance decision involving Milivoj Miletić. The revision uses that contemporaneous trail to question the “father unknown” premise of the June adoption.

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 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 linked dossier supplies the historical record for the revision’s allegation that Vera Radovanović combined narrative-building, recommendations, guardianship and consent. Her recorded acts and the author’s conflict-of-interest conclusion are distinguished.

The files show that Vera Radovanović: - participated in shaping the narrative about the plaintiff’s mother; - participated in relativising Pavle Lakatoš’s paternal line; - maintained and prepared the case documentation; - recommended the particular adopters specifically for the minor Milivoj Miletić; - was appointed ad hoc guardian to consent to full adoption; - consented to full adoption; - then reappeared in 1984 in a new cycle of institutional removal and a new adoption of the same child. In his appeal, the plaintiff clearly explained why assessing this concentration of roles in one person is decisive: the same official could not simultaneously: - build the case; - create the factual narrative; - recommend particular adopters; - assume the role of protector of the child’s interests; - and then consent to the outcome she herself had previously prepared, which proved wrong and contrary to the child’s best interests. The Court of Appeal did not assess these arguments, did not say that they were irrelevant to a correct and lawful decision, and did not consider them in any way. It completely disregarded them. It did not call the argument immaterial. It did not reject it. Such failure to assess the grounds of appeal violates Article 396(1) CPA and renders the second-instance judgment unlawful. ### 6. The second-instance court did not genuinely answer the ground of appeal concerning the guardianship authority’s competence The plaintiff’s appeal did not challenge in the abstract that the Self-Managing Community of Interest for Social Protection in Novi Sad could have had certain powers as a guardianship authority under a general decision from 1977. The plaintiff challenged: - by which specific act that authority acquired competence over the minor Milivoj Miletić before 21 June 1979; - when that competence was established; - on what facts; - how this fits with the Municipal Court in Novi Sad’s letter of 20 July 1979 directing the Secretariat for Veterans’ and Disability Affairs and Social Protection, as guardianship authority, to appoint a guardian to protect the rights and interests of the minor Milivoj Miletić in the probate proceedings after Pavle Lakatoš’s death.

The 1979 record Up.03-507/79 is the act challenged. The revision compares its parental information and consent narrative with Article 34 and the separate full-adoption conditions.

> “Full adoption may not be dissolved.” In the factual part of its judgment, the Court of Appeal accepts that: - on 21 June 1979 the plaintiff was fully adopted by Milorad and Gospava Vasić; - on 26 September 1984 the plaintiff was adopted again by Periša and Georgina Petrović. If the first full adoption was lawful and indissoluble, a second adoption of the same child could not lawfully have been carried out. If the second adoption was nevertheless carried out, that cannot have no bearing on assessment of the legal sustainability of the first full adoption. The second-instance court refused to draw any conclusion from this direct statutory contradiction, reasoning that the validity of the second adoption is not the subject of the proceedings. That approach is wrong. The subject of the proceedings is the nullity of the 1979 full adoption. The fact that the same system placed the same child for adoption again in 1984 is directly relevant to assessing whether the 1979 act was indeed lawfully, fully and permanently established. The Court of Appeal neutralised the legal significance of this fact instead of assessing it. It thereby failed to apply Article 40 and assess the status consequences under Articles 35, 37 and 38 SAPVAA. ### 7. The second-instance court incorrectly applied Article 34 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina Article 34 SAPVAA provides: > “Information about the adoptee’s parents shall not be entered in the record establishing full adoption.” Yet the Court of Appeal states in its reasoning that the full-adoption record Up.03-507/79 of 21 June 1979 records: - that the minor Milivoj’s mother has been at an unknown place of residence for a prolonged period; - that she does not perform her parental duties without justifiable reasons; - that Vera Radovanović was appointed ad hoc guardian and consents to adoption. In other words, according to the Court of Appeal’s own factual description, the full-adoption record contains information about the adoptee’s parent, and uses it as the central factual basis for establishing full adoption. That directly contradicts Article 34 SAPVAA. The Court of Appeal did not assess this legal consequence at all. Although this violation was not separately numbered in the appeal, it follows from the contested judgment’s own factual description and is a legal consequence of the facts the second-instance court itself accepted as established. It is therefore directly relevant in proceedings on this appeal on points of law, as further confirmation that the lower courts applied SAPVAA selectively.

The 1984 adoption is invoked as evidence bearing on the premise of a lawful, indissoluble 1979 adoption. The revision expressly does not substitute a separate claim to annul the second act for the existing claim.

> “Full adoption may not be dissolved.” In the factual part of its judgment, the Court of Appeal accepts that: - on 21 June 1979 the plaintiff was fully adopted by Milorad and Gospava Vasić; - on 26 September 1984 the plaintiff was adopted again by Periša and Georgina Petrović. If the first full adoption was lawful and indissoluble, a second adoption of the same child could not lawfully have been carried out. If the second adoption was nevertheless carried out, that cannot have no bearing on assessment of the legal sustainability of the first full adoption. The second-instance court refused to draw any conclusion from this direct statutory contradiction, reasoning that the validity of the second adoption is not the subject of the proceedings. That approach is wrong. The subject of the proceedings is the nullity of the 1979 full adoption. The fact that the same system placed the same child for adoption again in 1984 is directly relevant to assessing whether the 1979 act was indeed lawfully, fully and permanently established. The Court of Appeal neutralised the legal significance of this fact instead of assessing it. It thereby failed to apply Article 40 and assess the status consequences under Articles 35, 37 and 38 SAPVAA. ### 7. The second-instance court incorrectly applied Article 34 of the Adoption Act of SAP Vojvodina Article 34 SAPVAA provides: > “Information about the adoptee’s parents shall not be entered in the record establishing full adoption.” Yet the Court of Appeal states in its reasoning that the full-adoption record Up.03-507/79 of 21 June 1979 records: - that the minor Milivoj’s mother has been at an unknown place of residence for a prolonged period; - that she does not perform her parental duties without justifiable reasons; - that Vera Radovanović was appointed ad hoc guardian and consents to adoption. In other words, according to the Court of Appeal’s own factual description, the full-adoption record contains information about the adoptee’s parent, and uses it as the central factual basis for establishing full adoption. That directly contradicts Article 34 SAPVAA. The Court of Appeal did not assess this legal consequence at all. Although this violation was not separately numbered in the appeal, it follows from the contested judgment’s own factual description and is a legal consequence of the facts the second-instance court itself accepted as established. It is therefore directly relevant in proceedings on this appeal on points of law, as further confirmation that the lower courts applied SAPVAA selectively.

The January submission is an editorial comparison for continuity of the author’s identity and institutional-responsibility argument. This relation does not imply that the revision expressly names that submission on this page.

The plaintiff did not discover the truth about his origins because the state enabled effective exposure of the severing of identity it had itself produced. He discovered it through his own personal investigation over several years, connecting scattered family, archival and judicial traces. The present-day violation of the right to identity in this case therefore lies not only in historical concealment of origins. It also lies in the fact that, after the plaintiff’s original identity line was uncovered and documented, the domestic courts maintained the legal consequences of a full adoption whose lawfulness falls apart before the text of the law then in force and the files examined in the proceedings. The case is no longer confined to the right to discover one’s origins. The plaintiff discovered them without the state’s assistance. It now concerns the right not to have the state, after the truth has emerged, continue judicially maintaining an administrative order founded on erasure of his original identity. ### 2. Article 78 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia is directly relevant Within the domestic constitutional framework, this violation has a direct basis in Article 78 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, prohibiting forced assimilation of persons belonging to national minorities and guaranteeing protection against any act directed towards such assimilation. The plaintiff does not invoke this article as an abstract legal-political assertion. He invokes it as the domestic constitutional expression of the same identity protection violated in these proceedings. The plaintiff is the child of a mother of Croatian origin, Cvita Miletić, and a man whose paternal line, family trail and inheritance track emerge from state files as connected with Pavle Lakatoš, a Hungarian. By administrative removal from that circle, the child was not merely renamed. He was cut off from his mother’s Croatian line, his father’s Hungarian line, his father’s language, blood relationships, inheritance position and actual family continuity. The domestic courts now refuse to resolve or correct the legal consequences of that act. Maintaining the legal consequences of the contested full adoption today is not neutral preservation of an old family-law act. It constitutes continued administrative assimilation through a contemporary judicial act. Such an approach directly conflicts with the prohibition of forced assimilation in Article 78 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia. ### 3. Article 8 of the European Convention protects origins, identity and personal history The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly confirmed in its case-law that the right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention includes: - a person’s right to know their origins; - the right to discover the identity of their biological parents; - the right to establish their biological relationship; - the right to personal history and the reasons for adoption;