Publiceret 14-06-2024

‘Today, the Ombudsman consumes neither painkillers nor champagne when it turns out that a case includes EU law.’

So says Parliamentary Ombudsman Niels Fenger in an article in the English version of the Ombudsman’s 2023 Annual Report.

In the article, Niels Fenger analyses the development of the Ombudsman Office’s approach to EU law through the years. He shows that, for many years, the Ombudsman had a careful and cautious approach to the review of Danish authorities’ application of EU rules. In recent years, however, EU law has taken its place as a natural basis for review in the same way as Danish rules. For instance, this applies to Directive 2003/4 on public access to environmental information, which is the EU legislative act that the Ombudsman most often includes in his assessment basis.

Niels Fenger also states that the number of complaint cases to the Ombudsman concerning EU law has increased in recent years. However, it is still low considering how big a part of the Danish legislation that originates in EU law.

Klavs Kinnerup Hede, Director of International Relations, contributes to the Annual Report with an article on the Ombudsman’s interaction with the world around us. The reader gets a look at the Ombudsman’s international activities and his cooperation with international organisations and authorities, among other things.

Highest number of cases ever

In addition, the Annual Report mentions some of the cases that the Ombudsman dealt with in 2023, and it contains some statistical information about the Ombudsman’s work. In this section of the Annual Report, it says that the Ombudsman opened 6,167 cases last year, which is the highest number in the history of the Ombudsman Office.

Read the Annual Report

Further details:

Director of International Relations Klavs Kinnerup Hede, tel.: +45 33 13 25 12, e-mail: kkh@ombudsmanden.dk

A court of civil jurisdiction has ruled that the redeployment of a lecturer from the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) back to a government secondary school was null and void because the decision amounted to an abuse of power. The court’s decision follows upon a previous ruling by the Commissioner for Education that the lecturer’s treatment by MCAST “was oppressive and tantamount to degrading treatment”.

On 6 October 2020, Dr Peter Gatt, a Senior Lecturer II at MCAST, had complained to the Ombudsman that for that current year he had not been assigned classes to teach and had also been prohibited from contacting students within the Institute to which he was assigned.

By a final decision of 12 May 2021, the Commissioner for Education, Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent A. De Gaetano, upheld his complaint and held that MCAST’s decision not to assign to the complainant any teaching duties and, moreover, to prohibit him from contacting students without any valid reason was behaviour (by MCAST) which was oppressive and tantamount to degrading treatment towards a member of its staff.

Shortly after this decision, Dr Gatt was informed by the Education Ministry that his detailing at MCAST was being revoked as of 11 June 2021, and that he was to report for duty at a secondary school. In July 2021, Dr Gatt applied for and obtained from the First Hall of the Civil Court a warrant of prohibitory injunction stopping the transfer from becoming effective, and he immediately followed this by seeking judicial review of the decision to revoke his detailing at MCAST.

By a judgment delivered by the First Hall of the Civil Court (Madam Justice Audrey Demicoli) on 30^th May 2024, the revocation of the detailing was held to be null and void on the ground that it was an abuse of power as it was based on irrelevant considerations. The court ordered that the plaintiff be reinstated at MCAST in the salary scale he occupied before the decision to revoke his detailing was taken. The judgment is subject to appeal.

When a Chief Guardian Board was checking the suitability of a prospective guardian, information was collected about her relatives.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman states that such information can certainly be important for checking, for example, a possible conflict of interest situation. As a rule, however, such information is not necessary for the assessment. On the basis of, among other things, the constitutionally protected right of individuals to private and family life, such information must not be collected randomly. As nothing has emerged to indicate that there was reason to include such information in the case in question, the Chief Guardian Board is criticised.

Support for human rights systems and defenders

When 28 June 2024

Where Vienna, Austria

Organised By FRA

FRA event

On 28 June, FRA will welcome the participants of the Public Leadership Programme for Women from the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest.

The group from various walks of life and ages will hear about FRA's work.

There will be a specific focus on communications, international relations and stakeholders' engagement, the relationship between AI and fundamental rights as well as FRA's work on asylum, borders and migration.