On 20^th January, 2014 Prof. Irena Lipowicz held a meeting with Mr Usen Suleiman, Ambassador-at-Large, responsible for human rights issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The  Spanish Ombudsman,  Ms. Soledad Becerril, and the First Deputy Ombudsman, Francisco Fernández Marugán, visited the immigrant detention center of the Zona Franca, in Barcelona. They were accompanied by the Director General of the Police, Ignacio Cosidó, and the Government Delegate in Catalonia, Llanos de Luna.

The training took place from 2 to 4 January 2014 and was attended by 21 investigation officers from African Ombudsman Institutions in Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Nigeria and Tanzania.

After an intervention from the Ombudsman, a long-term prison inmate finally received an answer to his application to be allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court after a decade of delay.

An investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has resulted in London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham repaying a significant sum of money to 58 elderly tenants who had been overpaying for water in their homes.

In September 2013 the Forum of Pakistan Ombudsman held a Workshop on the Challenges of Ombudsmanship. One month later, a special report regarding the activities during those two days was released.

The Catalan Ombudsman, in collaboration with the International Association of Language Commissioners (IALC) has organized an international Symposium on Language Rights and social cohesion in multilingual societies, which will take place next March in Barcelona.

According to Ontario’s “sunshine law”, all meetings of councils, local boards and their committees must be open to the public unless they meet certain narrow requirements. However, there is no punishment for violating the law and municipalities are allowed to hire their own investigators.