As of 1 July 2012 the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) operates as National Preventive Mechanism within the OPCAT-regime. With regard to these new tasks the AOB attended the expert workshop on “Irregular migrants, Frontex and the NPMs” on 12 and 13 June 2012 in Belgrade as an observer.

On 3 July 2012 the Advocate of the People, Dr. Gheorghe Iancu, was removed from office by a joint decision of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, (236 votes in favor, 1 negative vote).

This year’s IOI training course is soon taking place in Vienna. Five places are still available. Please contact the IOI General Secretariat (ioi@volksanw.gv.at) quickly to register for this high-profile training event. Registrations will be accepted until 23 July 2012.

The Advisory Council was created with the purpose of rendering advisory support to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, holding scientific researches, and also consideration of suggestions concerning the improvement of the state of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms by means of effective using of potential of civil society institutions

Dear readers, the IOI Newsletter will be on summer break until 31 August 2012 when the General Secretariat will report back to you with the next edition of the Newsletter.

In 2011 the activities of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights had to be carried out under the circumstances of crisis tendencies, where crisis management often generated debates on the interpretation of fundamental rights.

The European NPM Newsletter is a bi-monthly review of information deemed relevant for National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) in the Council of Europe region. It is prepared under the aegis of the National Human Rights Structures (NHRS) Unit of the Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs of the Council of Europe

Certain provisions of the Act on Nationalities, which entered into force on 1 January 2012, are contrary to the Fundamental Law and restrict the fundamental rights of nationalities – the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights has requested the Constitutional Court to establish this and to annul the text parts indicated in his petition.