European Ombudsman
Lecture by Mr. I. Harden
By Sijmen Groot
Tuesday the 25th of April was a lovely day. After visiting the Rhine Navigation Commission Louis, the bus driver, drove us to the building of the European Ombudsman. The building itself (the Salvador de Madariaga Building) has a totally different style from the (late) 19th century palace were the Rhine Navigation Commission is situated. Looking at the style of its architecture, I would guess the new building was probably built about a century later. The conference room where our meeting was held seemed in particular to be in typical 1970s style. But apart from that, it was just a conference room of the kind that we have seen a lot of during the whole trip.
We were kindly welcomed by Mr. Harden. He is Head of the Legal Department of the European Ombudsman and is British.
Mr. Harden would prove to be quite a good speaker. Here is a summary of his speech.
The institution of the European Ombudsman was created in the Maastricht Treaty as part of a “citizens’ Europe”. The first European Ombudsman was elected by the European Parliament in 1995. The current European Ombudsman is P. Nikiforos Diamandouros.
He has held office since April 2003 and he will most likely hold his post until 2009.
Residents and citizens of the EU can complain to him about maladministration by the institutions and bodies in the European Union. His job is to investigate these complaints and give his advice, proposals or
recommendations to the 'failing' institution. The institution then has three months to answer. This has to be done in the same language as the complaint. About 70% of the complaints are against the European Commission. This is because of the great amount of money that is often involved in cases dealt with by the Commission, but also because of the regulatory powers that the
Commission has. The cases are also often about access to documents.
If a complaint is not on a European (Institutional) level, then the European Ombudsman can send it to a national Ombudsman (of which there are 23 in the EU). This has happened, for instance, in a case where a Finnish citizen complained about Finnish prisons.
An applicant can either go to the European Ombudsman or to a European Civil Service-Tribunal, which is new. If a complaint is made to the Ombudsman, he or she first looks at whether the complaint is admissible. Last year the Ombudsman received 3920 complaints, of which approximately 10% were fully
Citizens can often choose either to go the European Ombudsman (or a Civil Service Tribunal) or to the Court of First Instance.
So the Ombudsman does not exclude cases which could also be heard by the Court.
Going to the Ombudsman can have its advantages in comparison with going to the Court: the most important one is that the Ombudsman can act quicker than the Court of First Instance or the Court of Justice. The Ombudsman also has more powers of investigation. There are no strict requirements of standing like there are when one wants to go to the Court. For example in cases about a breach of legitimate expectations, the Ombudsman often has more possibilities to investigate and take action.
The main disadvantage of the Ombudsman is that its actions are not legally binding. But the
Ombudsman can put pressure - particularly political pressure - on the 'failed' institution. He can make proposals, recommendations and Special Reports to the EP. These documents are all open to the public. This way its advice can form public opinion, especially on subjects of public interest. This could in itself result in the institution
feeling itself (morally) obliged to change its conduct.
Finally Mr. Harden said something about the word 'ombudsman'. It is originally a Swedish word. It is gender neutral. There is a difficulty with the plural in English. In English the plural of 'ombudsman' is sometimes written as 'ombudsmen'. But essentially that is not right because an ombudsman does not have to be a man.
After this wonderful speech, I personally had the honour to thank Mr. Harden by giving him a present, "as a token of our appreciation".
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