January newsletter of the Ombudsman Association now available.

Deadline for registration to the international seminar and training workshop, held in Bangkok from 3 to 6 April 2013, is Thursday, 28 February 2013. The event will be hosted by the Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand in cooperation with the IOI and the Asian Ombudsman Association.

The newly admitted IOI member, the Ethiopian Institution of the Ombudsman (EIO), organized a workshop for federal and regional government offices’ public relations heads to discuss the implementation of the Access to Information Law. The workshop also focused on the reports regarding the implementation of the law that government bodies have to submit to the EIO.

On 22 January 2013, Ombudswoman Terezija Stoisits and Ombudsman Peter Kostelka met Catherine De Bruecker and Guido Schuermans of the Federal Ombudsman of Belgium. The discussion focused on the experience of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) regarding its new responsibilities as the Austrian National Preventive Mechanism.

In its efforts to further increase the regional impact of the IOI, the members of the IOI Board of Directors decided at their Wellington meeting in November 2012 to once again make regional subsidies available to IOI members.

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary, Máté Szabó, conducted an inquiry on the treatment of students with disabilities in institutions of higher education. The ombudsman found out that the rights of disabled students are not enforced in a uniform practice by the institutions of higher education. Ombudsman Szabó asked the Minister of Human Resources to establish a clear legal context.

The Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Valeriya Lutkovska, submitted a request to the Prime Minister of Ukraine concerning the elimination of violations of the right of legal protection, caused by violations during judicial proceedings. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, instructed the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to consider this issue and determine ways of its solution and as a result make proposals to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary examined the constitutional aspects of getting into and getting out of community employment programs. The report also reveals the constitutional problems related to the payment of the wages of persons in community employment and the lack of adequate guarantees set by labour law regulations.