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The international community confirms the need to strengthen the ombudsman in current society
The Ombudsman has submitted a report about the international framework of the ombudsman institution that confirms its growing importance.
The report is a research about the defining features of the role of this institution in current democracies and draws the following key conclusion: the international consensus about the need for its creation at national, regional and local levels as a magistrate of persuasion endowed with auctoritas to protect rights and freedoms of citizens and to promote good administration.
The pattern of the ombudsman institution defended by the United Nations and the Council of Europe in their pronouncements is characterized by the traits of independence of the person holding the office as well as the exercise of their functions.
Finally, the report also alerts about the contradictory situation that ombudsmen find themselves in, as they are necessary to guarantee rights of people in a time of fragility of policies and social relations, but also threatened with disappearence on the grounds of scarcity of resources. This document has been written by Joan Vintró, professor on Constitutional Law, and Ignacio Aragonés, lecturer on Constitutional Law, both in the University of Barcelona, with the contribution of the Catalan Ombudsman, Rafael Ribó.
