In 2021, a record volume of 12,219 new cases were processed, as a result of a 6% annual increase in the number of complaints admitted. Based on 2017, the beginning of the first mandate of the current Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, the accumulated growth in the number of new complaints processed is 57%.

A new high of 21 259 requests addressed to the Ombudsman were also recorded, including 2 865 calls received on the telephone lines especially dedicated to Children, Senior Citizens and Persons with Disabilities (CID-Core).

Activity indicators were once again the highest in the history of this independent State body, created in 1975 to defend people who feel they have been harmed by unfair or illegal acts or omissions on the part of the administration or other public powers, or whose fundamental rights have been violated.

These data are contained in the Report to the Assembly of the Republic – 2021 [in Portuguese only] delivered today, together with the annual report on the activity developed by the Ombudsman as the National Preventive Mechanism [in Portuguese only] for Torture.

Issues related to Social Security, and the performance of its Institutes, continued to be the main subject of complaints, although their relative weight decreased from 30% to 27%, the same having occurred in the weight of complaints related to Taxation (from 13% to 10% of the total). Public Employment Relations, while maintaining the same proportion as the previous year, is now accompanied by Economic-Financial matters, which showed strong growth in their relative weight (rising from 5% in 2020 to 8% in 2021).

Taking a closer look, we can conclude that 2021 continued to be marked by the COVID-19 pandemic that affected many sectors of activity, workers, families and companies, with repercussions on the volume of complaints processed in relation to essential public services, transport, housing, registry services and notary public services and, in particular, in relation to diverse modalities for attribution of support, which explains the sharp rise in the number of complaints falling within the scope of Economic and Financial Issues.

There was also a strong growth trend in complaints related to health issues (32% increase for a total of 727), largely due to difficulties in procedures for issue of the medical certificate for multi-use disabilities, a situation that had led the Ombudsman to make a Recommendation to the Government in the previous year. It should be emphasized that issues related to health were those that determined the highest number of contacts made to the Elderly People’s Line, exceeding, for the first time, those related to social responses.

Another highlight is the increase in complaints regarding parental protection and family benefits, which led to the opening of more than double the number of cases compared to 2020 (426 against 183). This significant increase was due, on the one hand, to the change in the family allowance income bracket and, on the other hand, to the delay in attributing prenatal family allowance and child benefit, which led to intervention by the Ombudsman.

Throughout 2021, the Ombudsman addressed fourteen Recommendations and submitted two requests for abstract review of constitutionality to the Constitutional Court (see here and here).

In the year under review, it is also important to draw attention to the publication of a set of three studies, called “Pandemic Notebooks”, which sought to understand the impact of the pandemic in three fundamental dimensions of collective life. The first study focuses on the general topic of education and is based on information obtained during the first phase of classroom suspension, which took place in 2020. The second focuses on people experiencing homelessness, and the third reflects on rule of law issues during the period between March 2020 and April 2021.

National Preventive Mechanism

In Portugal, the Ombudsman operates, since 2013, as the NPM- National Preventive Mechanism for torture and degrading treatment, whose activity is reported in an autonomous Report. In 2021, the NPM maintained its priority in carrying out visits to prisons, educational centers (EC) and temporary installation centers and similar spaces (CIT/EECIT). Having been able to resume its face-to-face activity, it carried out 50 monitoring visits. At the end of the year, all prisons in the country had been visited at least once in the previous 24 months, and all ECs had been visited between April and November 2021.

Similarly to the assessment made in 2020, the NPM considers that the restrictions adopted in the context of deprivation of liberty in order to prevent and mitigate the pandemic were appropriate and proportional, and notes the fact that there were no deaths related to COVID-19. The way in which the vaccination process took place, as well as the reinforcement of psychiatric and psychological care that, as a rule, occurred in the prison system, should also be positively highlighted. It is, however, with dismay that the NPM concludes that in 2021 there were no significant developments regarding the detention of foreign citizens in Portugal, and the issues identified in 2020 remain, namely the need to create a real CIT in the Lisbon area, as well as the standardization of procedures followed in the different places of detention of foreign citizens.

With regard to the future of the institution, and reflecting the internal restructuring that has taken place within the Ombudsman’s Office, Maria Lúcia Amaral said:

“An informal justice body which everyone can access free of charge should be conducted in such a way as to give preference to those who effectively need it most. An institution to which the Constitution confers a special place in the system for the protection of fundamental rights must be conducted in such a way that its actions conform to the importance that the constitutional system gives it. An authority of the Portuguese State that has been chosen as a ‘partner entity’ by the relevant actors in the international human rights system must be conducted in such a way that the extent of its ‘domestic’ action conforms to the extent of the international commitments that, in this field, the Republic has undertaken. However, none of these requirements will be met if the passive attitude of accepting and receiving any and all complaints that the administrative action – in its broadest sense – may trigger is maintained. The willingness to receive without limits may have made sense in 1974, when we had not yet built an administrative edifice sufficiently equipped with internal inspection and control mechanisms, and when we had not yet entrusted independent entities with the task of regulating essential public sectors. Almost half a century later, this disposition for unlimited receipt is no longer justifiable. Therefore, instead of receiving everything and responding to everything – often giving attention to problems and questions that, due to their dimension and nature, should be solved by the supervisory entities of each sector – the Ombudsman’s Office will have to progressively select its fields of intervention, devolving responsibilities to the instances of control and supervision that exist in each sectoral area.”

 Suffolk girl did not receive vital Occupational Therapy for nearly two years because of council confusion, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.

The girl, who has Autism and hypermobility, attended a mainstream primary school with support. The Occupational Therapy (OT) it was agreed she needed should have helped with her co-ordination difficulties and sensory overload.

The council agreed to include the OT support in a draft Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) – the legal document setting out the girl’s needs and how they should be met – in February 2019. Although this plan was never formalised, the girl did receive some OT support until February 2020 when it stopped because of COVID-19 restrictions.

The girl then missed out on the therapy she needed for nearly two years until February 2022 when the OT was reinstated.

The girl’s mother asked the Ombudsman to investigate. The Ombudsman found the council delayed completing the review of the girl’s EHCP in 2019. It should have issued the final plan in May 2019, but did not do so until January 2021. The Ombudsman also found the council did not take any action to seek alternative provision for the girl when her OT (which was provided by the NHS) stopped. Instead it wrongly believed it was the school’s responsibility to ensure the provision was in place.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said:

“Councils have a duty to ensure therapies as set out in children’s EHC Plans are delivered. I am concerned the council wrongly believed it could delegate this duty to the girl’s school.

“This long delay between therapy sessions has had a profound effect on the family. The girl has missed out on vital support: she has become distressed and has had to move schools. Her mother tells me she has experienced anxiety and distress knowing her daughter’s mental health was deteriorating.

“The changes I have recommended the council make should ensure it has better systems in place to monitor the support it provides to children such as in this case. I urge the council to consider my report thoroughly and look forward to the council’s agreement to the recommendations I have made.”

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman remedies injustice and shares learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services. In this case the council should apologise to the family and pay them £550 to recognise the anxiety and uncertainty about the loss of provision and lost opportunity to appeal, and for the time and trouble in bringing the complaint.

It should also pay a further £1,800 to reflect the loss of potential OT support between September 2020 and January 2021, and £4,000 to recognise the loss of provision from January 2021 to February 2022.

The council is currently changing its procedures following an independent review of SEND services carried out in 2021, which highlighted some of the same issues arising in this complaint. The Ombudsman also makes recommendations to improve processes for the wider public, and has made the following recommendations in light of this review.

The Ombudsman has recommended the council should arrange staff training, review its processes to ensure EHC Plans are amended and issued in line with statutory timescales. It should also ensure it has a way to check provision is arranged from the start of a new or amended plan. It will also review sources of therapy services and develop a plan to ensure it can commission therapies needed to support the EHC plans it maintains.

Article date: 30 June 2022

E' stata approvata con delibera n. 94 del 28.06.2022 la Relazione sull’attività del Garante dei Diritti della Persona nell’anno 2021 (Relazione già licenziata dalla Prima Commissione del Consiglio Regionale del Veneto, a maggioranza, nella seduta del 18 maggio 2022). Il documento è dedicato all'attività del Garante regionale dei diritti della persona. Garante in carica: Mario Caramel.

In calce alla news, il link alla sezione RELAZIONI ANNUALI, da cui è possibile il download del documento (Parte II dedicata all'attività di promozione, protezione e pubblica tutela dei minori di età).

• Sezione RELAZIONI ANNUALI (nel sito web area attività di promozione, protezione e pubblica tutela dei minori di età)

The European Network of Young Advisors (ENYA) is the child participation organ of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC). Child participation is one of the cornerstones of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

ENYA works every year on a different topic. In the ENYA Forum 2022, the young people have been discussing and making recommendations on climate justice.

The Forum was organized this year by the Ararteko’s Child Rights Department. From June 28 to 30, a total of 34 boys and girls from 17 different countries and regions met to put in common the work they had been doing in the previous months in their respective jurisdictions on climate justice. These boys and girls are members in advisory councils of child commissioners’ or ombudspersons’ offices throughout Europe, or are members of youth groups sponsored by these institutions. Taking a child rights perspective, they have been discussing the following topics:

• Climate action and the right to participate in environmental decisions.
• North-South: how climate change exacerbates inequalities across the globe.
• Consumption and carbon footprint: questioning the growth paradigm
• Sustainable mobility and land planning
• Energy sources

The participating youth came from Albania, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Croatia, Estonia, Flanders, France, Greece, Italy, Jersey, Malta, Northern Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia and Wales.

Besides their work on their recommendations to public authorities, which will be reflected in a report and in ENOC’s yearly statement to be released in late September, the young people had the opportunity to visit the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve and to plant 25 trees to compensate symbolically for the CO2 emissions caused by the event. They have also designed a child-led campaign to bring the recommendations to the attention of relevant decision-makers at European level.

In den vergangenen Wochen haben sich immer wieder Bürger an den Bürgerbeauftragten Matthias Crone gewandt, die Schwierigkeiten hatten, kurzfristig einen Reisepass oder einen Personalausweis bei ihrer örtlichen Behörde ausgestellt zu bekommen. Seit der Bekämpfung der Pandemie haben viele Bürgerämter die allgemeinen Sprechzeiten reduziert und vergeben Termine nur nach vorheriger Terminvereinbarung per Telefon oder online und in größeren Zeitabständen. In diesem Zusammenhang weist der Bürgerbeauftragte auf eine besondere Regelung im Personalausweisgesetz und im Passgesetz hin:

„Ein Personalausweis oder Reisepass ist zwar grundsätzlich im Bürgeramt des Wohnortes zu beantragen. Darüber hinaus ist es aber möglich, die Dokumente auch in jedem anderen Bürgeramt zu erhalten. Sollte es also in der Heimatgemeinde terminliche Engpässe oder lange Wartezeiten geben, kann man es in einer anderen Kommune versuchen. Voraussetzung für die Antragstellung außerhalb des Wohnsitzortes ist allerdings, dass Bürger einen wichtigen Grund für die auswärtige Beantragung haben“. 

Ein solcher Grund könne zum Beispiel vorliegen, wenn aufgrund von Arbeitszeiten die örtlich zuständige Behörde nicht erreicht werden kann, wohl aber eine andere. „Ein wichtiger Grund dürfte auch vorliegen, wenn sich wegen Terminproblemen in der Heimatgemeinde die Ausweiserstellung so in die Länge ziehen würde, dass ein geplanter Urlaub nicht rechtzeitig angetreten werden kann“, ergänzte Matthias Crone. Er empfahl, das Anliegen vorab mit der auswärtigen Behörde abzuklären. „Ich gehe davon aus, dass die Prüfung eines wichtigen Grundes lebenspraktisch und wohlwollend erfolgt.“

Eine Beantragung von Pass und Personalausweis in einem Bürgeramt außerhalb des Heimatortes führt zu einer höheren Gebühr.