2021-09-16

OSCE/ODIHR is seriously concerned about the Draft Amendments to the Aliens Act, and the Act on Granting Protection to Aliens on the Territory of the Republic of Poland and the Regulation of the Ministry of Interior and Administration of 13March 2020 on temporary suspension or restriction of border traffic at certain border crossing points, as amended on 20 August 2021. According to the OSCE/ODIR opinion the legislation would violate the international legal obligations and OSCE commitments of Poland. It is recommended to substantially revise or drop the Draft Amendments, as well as revise certain provisions of the Regulation in force.

More specifically, and in addition to what is stated above, OSCE/ODIHR makes the following recommendations:

A. The administrative procedure proposed under Articles 1 and 2 of the Draft Amendments fails to provide the requisite safeguards and guarantees, including due to limiting grounds for requesting international protection, the lack of individual risk assessment of the cases that persons present to border guards and thus can lead to violation of the obligation of indirect non-refoulement, as established by Article 33 of the UN Refugee Convention and pursuant to positive obligations under Article 2 and 3 of the ECHR;

B. Provisions 2a and 2b of the Ministerial Regulation are recommended to be repealed or substantially revised as they allow forced expulsion by executive order that may also lead to collective expulsion based on a written protocol which merely documents the illegal crossing of the person onto the territory of Poland and thus result in a violation of the prohibition on expulsion and/or collective expulsion;

C. The proposed provisions will unjustifiably restrict the right to an effective remedy for persons seeking international protection and asylum in Poland en route or on the territory of Poland by limiting the possibility of claims for international protection to be made and not providing effective right of redress and appeal.

Full opinion enclosed

Following the introduction of the Public Service Ombudsman (Wales) 2019 Act and the establishment of the Complaints Standards Authority, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) has the power to set minimum standards of complaint handling for public bodies in Wales.

The work on Complaints Standards includes issuing model complaint handling procedures, providing free training on good complaint handling practice and collecting information on complaints handled by public bodies themselves.

Local Authorities were the first Welsh Public Service bodies to be subject to Complaints Standards and, for the first time, PSOW is publishing the complaints data it has collated from them.

The data shows that just over 4,300 complaints were received by Welsh Local Authorities in the first quarter of 2021/22; this is the equivalent of 5.57 complaints for every 1,000 residents of Wales. (PSOW uses this type of representation to better compare public services which vary greatly in size.)

The data shows that close to 78% of complaints which were closed in the first quarter of the year were done so within the target of 20 working days. This measure of performance is important to people who use complaints services. However, whilst it is important that complaints investigations are conducted promptly, PSOW stresses that they should not be cut short simply to meet a target.

Local Authorities in Wales upheld roughly half of the complaints they closed. This figure shows how often complaints are found to hold some merit and can also lead to improvements in public service delivery. It is important to note that high uphold rates are not necessarily a sign of poor performance but can be an indication of willingness to improve service delivery.

Just over 250 complaints relating to Local Authorities were referred to PSOW in the first quarter of the year, which represents about 6.5% of all complaints closed in the same period. This figure gives new context to both Local Authority complaints data and PSOW information – and could provide insight into how effectively complaints services function.

PSOW closed 99 cases related to Local Authorities in Quarter 1 of the year, with around a quarter of these cases being deemed within its jurisdiction to consider. Of the cases which it acted upon, the vast majority (87.5%) featured an early resolution being made by the Local Authority involved. The remaining examples featured cases where an investigation was upheld against the Local Authority – meaning that PSOW intervened in 100% of available cases in the period.

Nick Bennett, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales said, “I’m delighted with the excellent progress made in making use of our proactive powers and we’re excited to publish complaints data for the first time. These powers were several years in the making and I’m grateful to all the public bodies who have engaged with my colleagues. This regular data publication should become an important source of information which raises standards, promotes collaboration and drives improvement in public services.”

Matthew Harris, PSOW’s Head of Complaints Standards, said, “We’re delighted to publish data submitted to us for the first time and I’d like to thank our colleagues in Local Authorities across Wales for engaging so positively with our Complaints Standards work. Our quarterly data publications will drive transparency and consistency, as well as giving new context to what ‘complaints performance’ means. I think we need to understand that high volumes of complaints don’t necessarily mean low quality services; just as low levels of complaints don’t always indicate good service provision. The information shown here needs to be the start of the story, with the end goal of all complaints processes being to deliver better public services – not necessarily fewer complaints.”

Click here to see the data.

Giulianelli rinnova il suo messaggio per l’avvio delle lezioni visitando alcuni istituti scolastici del maceratese. In primo piano i disagi determinati dall’emergenza sanitaria e dal terremoto che ha colpito le Marche negli anni scorsi. Ribadita la necessità di collaborazione a tutti i livelli

In occasione dell’avvio dell’anno scolastico il Garante regionale, Giancarlo Giulianelli, incontra alcune classi del “Convitto nazionale Leopardi” e della scuola primaria “Salvo d’Acquisto” facente parte dell’Istituto comprensivo “Enrico Mestica” di Macerata.
“Rinnovo a tutti voi – ha sottolineato rivolgendosi agli studenti– l’invito a tenere sempre alto il confronto ed il dialogo, a ripartire con la necessaria determinazione e con la speranza che, superato questo lungo e complesso periodo determinato dalla pandemia, il futuro sappia regalarvi pagine di vita ricche di soddisfazioni”.
Seconda tappa del Garante in alcune scuole di Treia, Pollenza, Pieve Torina e Muccia, accompagnato da amministratori locali con i quali ha avuto modo di confrontarsi su diversi progetti in cantiere.
Giulianelli non ha mancato di ricordare come gli studenti che frequentano le scuole dei comuni colpiti dal terremoto abbiano dovuto affrontare, nel corso di pochi anni, due emergenze di vaste dimensioni. “A tutti noi corre l’obbligo – ha concluso – di non abbassare mai la guardia e, per quanto possibile, di creare le condizioni affinchè la scuola ritorni a fornire continuità e certezze. Due elementi imprescindibili che sono stati messi in discussione dalle emergenze con le quali siamo costretti a convivere. Ma dobbiamo e possiamo farcela attraverso il contributo e la collaborazione di quanti sono chiamati ad interagire quotidianamente con il mondo della scuola”.

A.Is.

There are more than 1.1 million people with disabilities living in the Czech Republic. While some data on their situation are already available from various sources, others are not tracked yet in the Czech Republic. That is why the Deputy Ombudsman proposed a set of indicators that, taken as a whole, could illustrate how the Czech Republic is doing in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

„Since 2018, the Ombudsman has been tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It has become clear that to make an informed assessment of the situation, we would need to collect more data, both those that relate directly to people with disabilities and those that show how the state intends to implement various articles of the Convention. Since the Ombudsman has limited possibilities in this regard, we invited representatives of state authorities and statisticians, practitioners, and academics to one place. Together we can discuss what data is already available and where it would be appropriate or possible to expand the collection of information to be able to evaluate the indicators (indicators) we have set for the implementation of the Convention,", Deputy Ombudsman Monika Šimůnková explains.

To begin with, indicators have been developed for the four articles of the Convention that are most intertwined in the lives of people with disabilities. These guarantee a life free from discrimination (Article 5) with the least possible restriction of autonomy (Article 12), promote an independent way of life (Article 19), and provide for the right to work (Article 27). People with disabilities were the first to comment directly on the proposed indicators in the Ombudsman's Advisory Body on Disability Issues.

Indicators of each of the areas monitored are divided into more detailed ones. These will, for example, determine whether people with disabilities are able to find housing outside large institutions or work on the so-called free labour market, and how many of them have experienced discrimination in Czech society.

"It is also important to monitor the differences between the situation of people with and without disabilities, for example, what is the employment rate in both groups or how long on average people with disabilities are registered with the Labour Office compared to applicants without disabilities," Helena Válková, the Government Commissioner for Human Rights, said today: "The purpose of the Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for persons with disabilities. To find out how and to what extent this is happening, a wide range of professionals can help us by using the indicators discussed at today's seminar."

The Director of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) added a similar perspective: „The new EU Disability Strategy offers hope for millions of people with disabilities, as it strives to ensure they can fully enjoy their rights and participate in our societies,” stressed Michael O'Flaherty „The Agency has been collecting data on the experiences of people with disabilities, to support the EU and EU countries in upholding their rights in the spirit of the Convention. Only with reliable, accurate, timely, and comparable data will countries be able to assess and monitor progress in ensuring the full participation of people with disabilities in our societies,” he added.

Proposed indicators are prepared in accordance with the social model of disability. This model does not perceive disability as a matter of a particular person but examines whether society is sufficiently responsive to the needs of people with disabilities and whether it creates conditions for their inclusion and social participation. „By tracking appropriate indicators, we can see if and how the state is removing barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully enjoying their rights. For example, in the Czech Republic, there are various alternatives to the restriction of legal capacity, yet the courts used them on average only in 18 % of decisions in 2014-2019. If society does not want to interfere with the fundamental rights of people with disabilities, this proportion should increase in the future," Petr Polák, a lawyer of the Ombudsman's Office, who works on the rights of people with disabilities, remarks.

José Smits, an independent expert from the European Disability Expertise network, shared her experience with the implementation of the Convention in the Netherlands at the seminar. Although the Netherlands signed the Convention in 2007, it took nine years to ratify it. According to José Smits, the biggest challenge was to get the public and politicians to think more deeply about society's attitude towards people with disabilities: „There was a general feeling that people with disabilities are very well off and are not discriminated against at all because they are able to receive generous benefits and the state offers them an extended system of special schools and care facilities. Those are considered good care in the Netherlands. Only the lack of accessibility of public buildings and spaces was perceived as a problem," the expert described.

Based on the outcomes of the international seminar, the Deputy Ombudsman plans to issue the first of a series of monitoring reports on the situation of people with disabilities. Others should follow at approximately three-year intervals. These reports can serve as a source of information for government agencies, academic and non-profit sector. They can also be used by the Deputy Ombudsman as a basis for informing the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

• FRA - Monitoring the implementation of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities
• J. Smits - Use of indicators to confront lack of urgency
  • The Netherlands Disabled Person’s Organizations Report on the CRPD in the Netherlands