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Surrogacy represents perhaps the oldest form of assisted reproduction, but at the same time the most controversial form of reproduction, on which reaching any consensus at the international level is almost impossible at the moment. In the last few years, the practice of surrogacy has encountered serious obstacles and challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but also with the war on the territory of Ukraine, where surrogacy was, until recently, extremely common. As a result of this, but also the fact that some legislations have significantly tightened their regulations, the surrogacy industry has been quickly adapting and looking for alternative ways to continue to run smoothly. That's how the so-called reprowebs, which imply a global network of reproduction consisting of several different locations, more or less connected to each other and which require answers to numerous questions in order to protect all participants in this procedure.

Recognition of persons with disabilities as deserving of the same rights, i.e. equality before the law is clearly highlighted in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from 2006. In addition to this Convention, the European Court of Human Rights has stated in its decisions that even a more serious mental deficiency can not be the only reason for the deprivation of legal capacity. In some countries, this understanding has been approved and accepted for a long time, and significant steps have been taken, primarily in the sense of abolishing a complete deprivation of legal capacity and moving to a system of providing support in decision-making instead of providing substitute decision-makers. In the Republic of Serbia, laws passed more than two decades ago are still in force and still unchanged regarding questions of legal capacity, which in practice leads to complete deprivation of legal capacity as a dominant way of decision-making. Although the Preliminary Draft of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Family Law has been drawn up, according to which complete deprivation of legal capacity is replaced by "restriction of legal capacity", it seems that this change may not bring substantial changes. It is necessary to work on changing the political narrative and understanding first in order for the real changes to actually occur.

Having in mind demographic trends and especially growing number of the population in the old age, it is very important that family law deals with the needs of the vulnerable adults. In 2021 in Serbia the percentage of the population aged 65 and older is 21.3%. The number of users in Centres for social work that are deprived of 'transactional' ('contractual') capacity is growing (in 2017 13.075 persons are deprived of the 'transactional' ('contractual') capacity. Having in mind UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Serbia has ratified the Convention in 2009) in this paper authors analyse legal changes in the procedural law which aim is protection and empowerment of vulnerable adults in Serbian law. One solution is limitation of the deprivation of 'transactional' ('contractual') capacity in a way that the decision is to be to reexamine in the period of maximum three years (Law on Non-Contentious Proceedings amendments 2014). Other solution is the obligation of the court to define legal operations which the person deprived of the capacity can undertake by himself/herself and especially if this person can exercise his/her elective right (Law on Non-Contentious Proceedings amendments 2022). The authors analyse proposed legal changes in the family law which aim is to empower vulnerable adults. The recent Draft Law on Amendments to Family Act empowers vulnerable adults in the several ways. It is proposed to abandon the existing institution of "deprivation of legal capacity" and to keep only the institution of the "limitation of legal capacity". It is proposed that court in the decision on limitation of 'transactional' ('contractual') capacity should determine the legal operations that a person partially deprived of capacity may not undertake independently. The Draft Law on Amendments to Family Act adds the legal acts to legal operations which the person deprived of capacity may undertake. This solution empowers vulnerable adults giving them wider circle of independent rights. It is proposed that the guardianship authority is obliged to protect the dignity and well-being of the ward; try to limit the rights of the ward as little as possible; encourage the ward's independent decision-making; provide him/her support in decision-making, as well as the participation in community life; take into account all the specifics of the ward's personality and accept his decisions, opinions, wishes, and attitudes, unless it is in conflict with the welfare of the ward. In addition, it is proposed to stipulate the guardian's obligation to make sure that the adult ward receives all the information on issues that concern him/her in a timely manner and to take into account in the utmost extent possible the ward's decisions, opinion, wishes and attitudes when performing the guardian's duties.

Although we cannot ignore the fact that the law in some way affects the family from the very beginning by determining who is considered a family member, what are their mutual rights and obligations, how certain relationships are formed and how they end, modern understanding of the family, however, necessarily implies respect for the extremely wide field of family, that is parental autonomy. Such an understanding could, in the most extreme form, result in an almost complete absence of responsibility of the state or the legal system for everything that happens in the family. In this sense, there are very weak formal legal obligations of the state in taking an active role in strengthening the family, and in practice there is virtually no involvement of the state in strengthening ties within the family before certain problems arise. On the other hand, if someone has the potential to protect the family and its members, then it is certainly the legal system. The protection of the family must not be reduced only to the question of how to do it, but also at what moment or whether the protection and development of healthy family relationships must be an issue to be addressed much earlier, even before the family is formed. In that sense, counseling or conversations with competent persons, can be of special importance. Also, although they are relatively foreign to our culture, the popularization of prenuptial agreements and presenting future spouses or common law partners with the possibilities of this agreement provides, can contribute to the avoidance of later property disputes. In this paper, the focus will, however, be on certain solutions that can help in situations where there is already a disturbance in the relationship between family members, that is between spouses or common law partners. Any attempt to calm the situation, or moderate and careful intervention in family relations, can primarily be achieved by insisting on certain alternative ways of resolving disputes. In addition, the existence of specialized judges, as well as lawyers, who would implement significant changes in the education system of future lawyers, but also in the field of practice, can also greatly contribute to this goal. Finally, certain changes in the field of family substantive law can also be of great importance. In that sense, this paper primarily focuses on certain solutions proposed in theory, their analysis in the context of Serbian legislation, as well as on possible further changes in domestic regulations. Namely, although some proposals have already found their place in the positive legislation of Serbia, it remains uncertain to what extent these provisions have been applied and whether they really contribute to maintaining stable family relations in situations when relations are seriously disturbed.

According to the Serbian Family Act marriage is cohabitation between two persons of the opposite sex governed by the law. The same act, prescribes substantial and formal requirements for valid marriage. This paper aims to present a review of these requirements in domestic and comparative law as well. It analyzes each condition separately, giving an overview of their historical development and the way they are regulated today in different legal systems. According to domestic law, substantial requirements are the following: opposite gender, expression of will to get married, cohabitation and lack of marriage impediments. However, there is a tendency in the contemporary family law to reduce marriage impediments, which leads to the liberalization and facilitation of marriage formation. Since marriage is very often concluded in religious form, article also gives an overview of the ecclesiastical rules concerning marriage. Finally, it analyzes and compares statistical data concerning number of concluded marriages and divorces in Serbia thirty years ago and in present time.

The article is based on research of case law conducted three times - 30 years ago, 10 years ago and recently in 2016, on the main criteria for awarding a child to one parent for sole custody. The researches were conducted in the courts in Novi Sad and Subotica. In addition, the paper examines the relevant legislation, starting with the laws that were in force before the Second World War to date. By comparing the results of previous research with the newer ones, the main conclusions are that the children are more often entrusted to mothers for sole custody and that the erstwhile criteria for such decisions are similar with nowadays. The most common criterion is the agreement of parents, which the court generally accepts without reservation, without determining whether the agreement is in the best interests of the child. However, the change in referring to the principle of the best interest of the child is noticed since the adoption of the Family Act in 2005, while this Act for the first time explicitly regulates the child's best interest as a legal standard. The results of the conducted research show evolution of court practice concerning the child's wish as a criterion, while the wishes of the children are increasingly being respected. When it comes to criteria for awarding a child to a father, it has been noticed that there is a difference in research conducted earlier and now. Namely, the court previously attached great importance to the help that the father had from his mother, while today this fact has lost significance. A more frequent determination and appreciation of the child's opinion on the one hand and the courts' perception of mother and father as equal parents on the other, we consider a positive shift in terms of the criteria for awarding a child to one parent on sole custody and we hope that such trends in judicial practice will develop even more in the future.

Exercising parental responsibilities can take two forms. On the one hand, parents having parental responsibilities can exercise them jointly. Another possibility is a sole custody arrangement when one parent exercises parental responsibilities alone. Joint exercise of parental responsibilities even in the cases when parents live separately was first introduced into our legal system by the Family Act of 2005. One of the conditions for jointly exercising parental responsibilities in these situations is the written agreement between the parents. This paper gives a review of the case law concerning parental responsibilities after divorce for different periods of time: the reviews of 1969 and of 1979 are given first, followed by the 1987, 1988 and 1989 case law reviews of two courts of first instance - the High Court in Novi Sad and the High Court in Subotica. Finally, the research results on the exercise of parental responsibilities after divorce in 2007 and 2016, conducted at the Basic Court in Novi Sad, are also presented, when a certain number of cases of joint exercise of parental rights are also analyzed, bearing in mind that this form of parental responsibility has existed since 2005, when the Family Act was adopted.

In many jurisdictions, spouses/common-law partners can choose which matrimonial property regime they want to be applied on their property relations. Viewed comparatively, such freedom exists in Western European countries for some time, but recently, both Eastern and Central European countries introduced the possibility of concluding marital property agreement in their legal systems, which changes the default marital property regime. However, the spouses do not have an absolute freedom when concluding such a contract. Restriction of freedom is due to the fact that the contracting parties are specific subjects - married persons, between whom exists personal relationships, which requires caution and some sort of protection of the weaker partner. This paper analyzes the legal mechanisms to protect weaker partners in domestic family law and in a comparative European law.

The termination of the late pregnancy causes legal, medical and ethical dilemmas. This is due to the development of fetus if pregnancy is late one and complexity of the needed medical procedures. Legal regime of the termination of late pregnancy contains special conditions: legally stipulated indications and special procedure which means getting permission from particular body for the termination. In this article author compares legal regimes in: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Nordic countries, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Check Republic and Serbia. Universal definition of the late pregnancy does not exist, but pregnancy after 24 weeks is considered late in Dutch law, and in the legal theory in United Kingdom. The time limit for termination of the pregnancy in some legislation is 24 weeks (e.g. Check Republic and Finland). According to Serbian law, there is a distinction of the pregnancy until 10 weeks, when termination is possible on pregnant woman's request, from 10 to 20 weeks when termination is decided by consilium of the physicians and after to 20 weeks when termination is decided by ethical committee. In the domestic law there is no distinction of the necessary indications for termination of the pregnancy after 10 weeks and after 20 weeks. Author suggest amendments to exisiting solutions. One, to postpone the termination on the requets until 12 weeks, and to stipulate different indications necessary for the termination pregnancy from 12 to 24 weeks and after 24 weeks - late pregnancy, in order to make the termination of the late pregnancy really exceptional.