Judicial review of the Serbian Social Card Law for ensuring compatibility with international human rights law is vital not only to affected persons and communities in Serbia, but also to the maintenance of Serbia’s existing obligations under international human rights law. This case also falls within an international context in which courts and international mechanisms are condemning and limiting similar large-scale public sector digitalization initiatives. Judicial review of this law may therefore also influence evolving precedents on digitalization and universal human rights. The author organizations submitting this legal opinion, which individually and collectively possess ample experience in the analysis and litigation of human rights law, therefore submit that this case concerning the Social Card Law is of particular importance in the context of international human rights.
The author organizations submit that in mandating far-reaching digitalization of a national benefits system, Serbia’s Social Card Law implicates international human rights to social security; equality and non-discrimination; privacy; due process; information and participation in public affairs; and remedy. These rights are grounded in international instruments ratified by Serbia, including: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR);2 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);3 the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),4 and connected human rights standards.
The Social Card Law unduly restricts the right to social security. The law aims at a much more granular and detailed profiling of beneficiaries’ circumstances to achieve a “fairer distribution of social assistance” (Article 3), suggesting that the main aim will be to remove some beneficiaries from the rolls. Its emphasis seems to be particularly on excluding existing recipients and narrowing the beneficiary pool, rather than increasing inclusion and expanding the reach of social programs. Further, the Social Card Law provides for the introduction of automated decision-making within the welfare system, relying on a single, far-reaching registry to ascertain eligibility and ineligibility. But this also risks restricting the right to social security, as such systems all too often increase the risk that individual beneficiaries will not receive benefits to which they are entitled, due to issues of error and bias, among other concerns.
