Ombudsman Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

An ombudsman is an official, usually appointed by the government or by parliament, who is responsible for investigating and addressing public complaints reported by individual citizens. As an advocate for the citizens, the ombudsman can play an important role in checking possible abuse of power by government officials. Several countries have established the office of the ombudsman, as has the European Union (EU) and even nongovernmental entities such as newspapers, broadcast media, and corporations.

The origin of the word ombudsman comes from the Old Swedish umbudsmann, although officials similar to an ombudsman existed in ancient China and Korea and in early Islamic states. Modern use of the term comes from the Swedish experience, where the Swedish parliament established its parliamentary ombudsman in 1809.

The ombudsman functions as a supervisory agency independent of the government and was intended to advocate for citizens who pressed claims against the government. By ensuring that the public administration serves the public and that it is held accountable for its actions, the ombudsman performs an important role to safeguard rights and ensure that the government properly administers the law. The ombudsman can be thought of as a supplement to the judicial system.

Depending upon the office’s precise mandate, the ombudsman—sometimes called the ombudswoman or just ombuds— may handle complaints on illegal government activity; denial of rights to citizens, especially with respect to discrimination; and maladministration, meaning problems such as bureaucratic carelessness, delay, or procedural irregularities. After a complaint is filed, the ombudsman investigates the validity of the charges. If a complaint is substantiated, the ombudsman publishes a report to that effect. The ombudsman may offer some sort of remedy to rectify the complaint and in many cases can give financial compensation to the harmed party. However, the ombudsman is not a court, and cannot impose legal sanctions. Any decision to initiate formal legal proceedings is typically not at the discretion of the ombudsman, although the ombudsman can support the aggrieved party by forwarding the findings to a court.

The major advantage of an ombudsman is independence from the state. However, the system relies heavily on the diligence of the individuals selected to serve in the office of the ombudsman and on the cooperation of at least some members of the state itself. Arguably, if the state functions well enough to have a strong and effective ombudsman, it may have less need of the ombudsman. Conversely, if the civil service is truly poor performing or corrupt, it is hard to imagine that the ombudsman alone will produce much of a difference. Perhaps for these reasons, outside Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, the introduction of ombudsmen has tended to produce somewhat less impressive results than initially hoped, and in nondemocratic settings, the actual influence of an ombudsman is quite limited. As they are primarily investigatory institutions, ombudsmen cannot substitute for the courts.

The first ombudsmen were in Sweden and in Finland, which created its own ombudsman in 1919.Today they exist in over seventy countries in the world. After World War II (1939– 1945), well-established democracies such as Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, France, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia created ombudsmen as an additional means to protect citizens’ rights and fight against various forms of discrimination. They have been an especially popular innovation in the newer democracies that may have problems with corruption, lack of respect for the rule of law, a weak court system, and a political system with weak checks and balances among government institutions. Thus, ombudsmen were created as democratic government spread to southern Europe (e.g., Greece, Spain, Portugal) and to postcommunist Europe, where ombudsmen serve in Estonia, Poland, Macedonia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Croatia, and Bulgaria. Among other states, the Philippines, Namibia, and South Africa also have ombudsmen. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 also established an office of ombudsman for the European Union, which provides a critical link between the citizens and the pan-European government and legal structures. In sum, ombudsmen exist on some level in over seventy-five countries in the world. In Canada, there is no national ombudsman, but they do exist on the provincial level. Similarly, the United States has no national-level ombudsman, although some states and local governments, as well as the U.S. Navy, utilize this type of system. Without question, however, use of ombudsmen is most firmly entrenched in Sweden, which has separate ombudsmen to prevent discrimination and advocate on behalf of gender equality, children’s rights, the physically disabled, homosexuals, consumer protection, and ethnic minorities. There is also an International Ombudsman Institute, which promotes the work of national ombudsmen.

Other institutions besides governments use the office of an ombudsman. Ombudsmen can be found in private companies, universities, and the print and broadcast media. Like those associated with the government, organizational ombudsmen are supposed to be independent, answering to the board of directors and investigating complaints by those inside and outside the concerned institution. This type of ombudsman can assist with whistleblowers or employees who have concerns with management, mediate conflict, ensure standards of fairness and professionalism, and assist in customer relations. Ombudsmen working with the media are often charged with investigating claims of inaccuracies or alleged bias.

In addition to offices with the formal title of ombudsman, governments and public institutions may employ citizens’ panels, outside reviewers, and other entities to provide expertise, investigate complaints, and evaluate the effectiveness of programs and policies. Some of these (e.g., the U.S. government panel to review social security in the 1980s or the 9/11 commission in the 2000s) can be quite high profile. These bodies, however, will be more ad hoc than a government ombudsman, whose office and scope of mandate is established by law.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Stanley. Ombudsmen for American Government? Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968.
Caiden, Gerald. International Handbook of the Ombudsman. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Gelhorn,Walter. Ombudsmen and Others: Citizens’ Protectors in Nine Countries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966.
Hill, Larry. The Model Ombudsman: Institutionalizing New Zealand’s Democratic Experiment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Rief, Linda. The Ombudsman, Good Governance, and the International Human Rights System. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004.
Rowat, Donald. The Ombudsman Plan: The Worldwide Spread of an Idea. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985.
Stacey, Frank. The British Ombudsman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Ombudsmen Compared. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

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