Public Protector Adv. Thuli Madonsela will be conferred with her fourth honorary Doctor of Laws Degree during the University of Cape Town’s law and commerce faculty graduation ceremony in Cape Town on 11 June 2015.

At the 8^th Biennial Caribbean Ombudsman Association (CAROA) Conference the Ombudsman of Sint Maarten, Dr. Nilda Arduin, was elected as the new President of the Caribbean association for the period July 2015 – June 2017. As President of CAROA, Dr. Arduin will endeavor to broaden the knowledge and awareness of good governance within the Caribbean region.            

The Spanish Ombudsman, Soledad Becerril, has written to the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, with proposals to improve the operations of deportation of foreigners currently being monitored by European Union Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States (FRONTEX).

El valedor do pobo, José Julio Fernández, completó hoy la tramitación parlamentaria del Informe Ordinario 2014 con su comparecencia ante el pleno de la Cámara gallega. Uno de los aspectos más destacables de la actividad del año 2014 tiene que ver con que cada vez más ciudadanos se dirigen al alto comisionado parlamentario para exponerle sus reclamaciones de manera colectiva.

Le Défenseur des droits, Jacques Toubon, et la Défenseure des enfants, Geneviève Avenard, ont rendu leur premier rapport sur la mise en œuvre par la France de la Convention internationale des droits de l’enfant (CIDE) au Comité des droits de l’enfant de l’ONU, à Genève, lundi 8 juin.

The Ombudsman`s office published the English version of the 2014 annual report on the actual topics of human rights and good governance. “To my regret, the year 2014 has not marked any significant positive shift towards human rights and good governance. Yet I am pleased to note that no rapid deterioration of the situation has been observed either”, says Juris Jansons, the Ombudsman of Latvia.

Until now, the Ombudsman’s Annual Report has been published at the beginning of October in the year following the report year. This is late. With effect from the report year of 2014, the process has successfully been moved forward so that the Report will now be published already in April of the following year. We are very pleased with that. Hopefully, it will help make the Annual Report even more topical and relevant.

Complaints to the Ombudsman about public services rose by 11% to over 3,500 in 2014. Launching his annual report today (Wednesday 10 June) Ombudsman Peter Tyndall said the increase was mainly due to the additional 200 public bodies which came within his jurisdiction for a full year for the first time in 2014. These included bodies in the education sector such as the State Examinations Commission and Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI).