The Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, submitted an initiative to the Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, to initiate urgently a procedure of amending the Law on Transplantation of Human Organs and the Law on Human Cells and Tissues in order to re-establish a full legal framework and enable the transplantation of organs and tissues of deceased persons, which would save the lives of patients, for whom not only the quality, but also the length of life depends on the time they wait for transplantation.

Several citizens addressed the Commissioner and pointed out the problem with organ transplants and the long waiting list, as well as the fact that, in 2021, transplants practically stopped, that is, only five transplants were done, which makes them feel rejected and discriminated against. For many of them, transplantation is also the last hope for survival or a better quality of life. Based on our competences, as well as the Constitution and the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, we submitted an initiative for urgent continuation of all started activities to solve this important issue, pointed out Brankica Janković, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality.

We remind that the Commissioner already addressed the competent ministry and that, according to the then Ministry of Health – Directorate for Biomedicine, a draft was prepared with changes to the mentioned laws. Also, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the provisions that prescribed the conditions for donating human organs and tissues from the deceased and provided for the assumed and revocable consent of the deceased for donation, so that, as of November 2021, there is no legal framework that regulates the conditions and procedure for transplantation of human organs and tissues from deceased persons.