The European Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg , asked the European Ombudsmen to favour the connection with his institution in order to improve the European Court of Human Right's work.
Hammarberg made this request at a meeting held in Berlin last January 11th gathering various European Ombudsmen. The Catalan Ombudsman, Rafael Ribó, attended as a member of the European Board of International Ombudsman Institute (IOI). According to the Commissioner, the Court receives many complaints that must be refused. It also has a work overload which causes, in turn, a significant delay carrying out its decisions. In order to cope with this situation, the Commissioner considers that Ombudsmen could inform citizens about the Court's tasks, as well as strengthen mediation and making pedagogy for them to ran out of each state resources before going to the European authority.