Parliament adopts amendments on missing persons

Parliament adopts amendments on missing persons

The amended legislation, known as "Tijana's Law", was adopted at the initiative of the family of late teenager Tijana Juric who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in July 2014.

Shortly afterwards, two more teens, Ivana Podrasic, aged 14 and Dragana Ciric, aged 18, were raped and murdered.

Tijana's father Igor Juric filed draft amendments to the Law on Police on August 30, 2014, and the motion won support of dozens of thousands of Facebook users. MP Sasa Mirkovic filed to the parliament the draft bill of amendments to Article 72 of the Law on Police in December 2014.

Tijana's Law will be enforced immediately upon publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia and it will make room for more efficient organization of the Serbian Ministry of Interior and its urgent response in high risk cases.

According to the provisions of the law, the police have the obligation to use all available measures and instruments without delay in case of an individual's disappearance, which should help improve the efficiency of police investigations in kidnapping and disappearance cases where reported missing persons are minors.