Office Of Ombudsman Research Articles

The Dynamics of Palestinian Elite Formation

The signing of the Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in September 1993 generated important questions regarding political inclusion and the dynamics of elite formation. With the Cairo Agreement of May 1994, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), these questions have become even sharper. Who occupies what positions of authority in the emerging PA? To what extent will political elites be held accountable, whether through the democratic process (the Cairo Agreement's provisions for an elected Palestinian legislature) or through the mediation of other actors and institutions (a free press, the office of a Palestinian ombudsman, and a watchful and vibrant Palestinian civil society)? How are elite cleavages likely to affect the institutionalization, administrative development, and policy choices of the PA? Particular attention has been focussed on the personal leadership style of Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO and now President of the PA. Arafat has been criticized for centralizing decision making, rampant

Elder Abuse in Long-Term Care Environments:

This is a descriptive study of institutional elder abuse in a populous California County. Data have been recorded from Long-Term Care Ombudsman Office records over a seven month period of convenience. One hundred sixty-two cases of alleged elder abuses were reported. Descriptive statistics such as average age, race and gender are reported as well as types of abuse and descriptions of the abuser. Resolutions of abusive situations both by Ombudsman's Office and institutions are reported. The data show the need for large scale prospective studies to explain why institutional abuse happens and what can be done to prevent it.

Bureaucratic Responsiveness and Complaint Resolution

The severe fiscal constraints affecting the city of Detroit in the early 1980s, although resulting in reductions in funding and personnel for city departments, had little impact on citizen perceptions of city services, as reflected in levels of complaints received by the city's Ombudsman Office. Analysis also revealed that bureaucratic responses and response times were relatively unaffected by cuts in resources. City agencies generally adhered to standardized procedures in providing services and responding to complaints.

Concepts of Competence: Reinventing the Scale?

I appreciate Ms. Bank's letter and her clarification of my statement that the Ombudsman's office is available to be called on by anyone suspecting elder abuse. That is precisely what 52:27G7.1(c) says. On the other hand, Ms. Banks is quite correct in pointing out that the Ombudsman's authority to act is limited to a statutory definition of facility that seems to include everything (nursing homes, special hospitals, veterans' hospitals and mental hospitals) except acute care hospitals. We agree that the statute would be more protective of elderly persons if the Ombudsman did have authority to investigate complaints originating in acute care hospitals as well, and an amendment to this effect is

The Institution of the Ombudsman in Africa with Special Reference to Zimbabwe

IN recent years there has been a remarkable increase in the number of countries which have established the office of ombudsman.' Between 1966 and 1984 over 80 national and provincial offices were set up worldwide and in black Africa an ombudsman now operates in eight countries.2 As will be seen, the African ombudsman has developed somewhat differently from the original Swedish model. It is the intention of this article to consider the development and effectiveness of the ombudsman in Africa and then examine in detail one of the recent

The Prison Ombudsman

A correctional ombudsman office is needed to balance the American prison systems. This is necessary because of both the nature of prison and the inadequacy of other means of dealing with the conflicts, grievances, and interpersonal problems inherent in incarceration. The ombudsman is the logical conclusion of the idea of inmate rights established by the prisoner litigation of the 1960s and 1970s. This paper discusses structural and personal attributes of an ombudsman and cites examples of ombudsman programs in U.S. prisons.

Office of Citizen Response: The Denver Experience

This statement was made by Nelson A. Rockefeller when he visited Denver for one of his series of Regional Forums in October 1975. This is, in part, the problem which Mayor William H. McNichols, Jr., of Denver addressed when he established the Office of Citizen Response (OCR) in January 1975. This agency is far more than just a clearing house for problems, but it is not a full-fledged Office of Ombudsman. It is not armed with the same powers as the traditional ombudsman, but it does assist citizens in airing their grievances to, and obtaining responses from, city government. The Office of Citizen Response was established on January 1, 1975, and began operating on February 10, 1975. In the summer of 1974 the request for such an office was made by several members of Denver's City Council who perceived an increasing need for such an office to assist citizens in dealing with their city government. The mayor asked the Budget and Management Office to conduct a study to determine the most ap propriate type of agency to establish. Based on the results of the study, the mayor decided to institute the Office of Citizen Response. The need for such an organization is substantiated by the record, with an average of 245 complaints and 127 requests for information being handled by the office every month. The general scope of the problem in Denver is similar to that in a number of other cities in the United States. Denver has a population of slightly over one-half million and this constitutes roughly one-third of the population of the metropolitan area. According to the 1970 census, roughly 28 per cent of the population of Denver consists of minorities, with 16.77 per cent Spanish surname, 9.13 per cent black, and 11.84 per cent other. The same census indicates that the median family income for approximately one-third of the families in Denver is less than $8,000. The Mission of the Office of Citizen Response

Public Servants in the New Zealand Ombudsman System

C ONCERN ABOUT THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT over the life of a citizen has prompted a quest for protective devices to insure that the citizen receives fair treatment from administrative authorities. The Scandinavian institution, Ombudsman, adopted by New Zealand in 1962, has caught the imagination of administrators, legislators, political scientists, and lawyers.' The Ombudsman is an impartial government officer who reviews complaints from citizens against administrative decisions. With access to departmental files, he has the power to criticize and to make recommendations to the departments; he has no powers of enforcement. Proponents of the system see the Ombudsman as a nonpolitical and easily accessible channel to be used by the citizens in challenging the fairness -not merely the legality-of an administrative ruling. The functioning of the Ombudsman Office in New Zealand affords some interesting data regarding two areas of inquiry.2 First, have the investigations and findings of the Ombudsman impaired the efficiency of the public service? And second, how do the public servants themselves view the Ombudsman system? In the United States the response to the Ombudsman proposals have been glacial.3 It appears that some legislators and public servants approve what they see on the surface, but, as in the case of the iceberg, are fearful of what lurks below. Legislators are apprehensive lest the Ombudsman undermine their

An Ombudsman for Cities?

The office of Ombudsman might have some useful functions in cities, but at present a great number of people, in paid and voluntary capacities, are meeting many of the functions of the Ombudsman in defending or pleading for people against the dicta of the bureaucracy. The office of Ombudsman would not be effective in many smaller cities because of the domination of small power groups in those cities. In the larger cities, the Ombudsman could have little effect in the face of the enormous problems and basic deficiencies of the cities. A great issue in political and social life in American cities is the effort of white and Negro separatists to discard democracy and to substitute a caste system based on separatism. If this effort succeeds, no Ombudsman at any level in American society can be effective, because future decisions will be based on what the castes demand of each other, and not on the principle of abstract justice for the individual.

The Ombudsman in the States

In response to a world-wide movement in the late 1950's to encourage all governments to adopt the Scandinavian Ombudsman institution, United States scholars wrote books and articles on, and statesmen introduced bills for the establishment of, such an institution at all levels of government. This essay concerns the Ombudsman in the states. Bills to create this office have been introduced in twenty-six states, the first by State Representative Eddy in Connecticut. So far, only one proposal has been enacted into law, namely, in Hawaii. Speaker Unruh of the California State Assembly introduced an Ombudsman bill in the 1965 and 1967 sessions of the legislature, which was passed by the Assembly but rejected by the Senate. The arguments for and against the creation of an Ombudsman office are considered. While the author believes that more precise studies and explanations are needed to overcome the apathy of the public and the resistance of legislators to this reform, he concludes that the best demonstration of the feasibility of this institution in the states can result only from actual experience.

The Office of Ombudsman in New Zealand

The Office of Ombudsman in New Zealand

Equality of Opportunity: Recent Developments in the Field of Human Rights in Nova Scotia

me special satisfaction. I was rather embarrassed by the question. I have been a judge for the greater part of my life and it had never occurred to me that I was doing anything remarkable when I delivered a judgment in a case. The work of the ombudsman is very similar to the work of the judge, comprising a lot of small cases, which are nevertheless very important to the party concerned. The work is nothing to boast of. It is everyday work, the purpose of which is to improve continually the legal security of the citizens. The countless reminders of the true contents of the law, which have emanated from the office during the 156 years of its existence-like the drops that hollow the stone by continuous falling-have had a definite influence on the way that civil servants have fulfilled and fulfil their missions. Even if the ombudsman's office has not done and cannot do anything remarkable, it is an expression of real democracy that society maintains an institution with the object of protecting citizens against society's own organs. and that everybody in society has the right to have his complaints against authority investigated, even if he is poor and without social position in the country.

An Ombudsman Scheme for Canada

There has been considerable discussion recently in the English-speaking world about the office of Ombudsman, or complaints commissioner, in the Nordic countries. The present paper first explains the need for the office, and shows how it meets this need. We then deal with arguments that have been raised against transplanting the institution to other countries, consider some problems regarding its functions and powers, and finally discuss the specific problem of its application to Canada.Briefly stated, the argument for the Ombudsman scheme derives from the fact that all democratic countries in the twentieth century have experienced a shift from the laissez-faire to the positive state. The accompanying tremendous growth in the range and complexity of government activities has brought with it the need to grant increasing powers of discretion to the executive side of government; and as Dicey has warned us, “Wherever there is discretion, there is room for arbitrariness.” It is quite possible nowadays for a citizen's rights to be accidentally crushed by the vast juggernaut of the government's administrative machine. In this age of the welfare state, thousands of administrative decisions are made each year by governments or their agencies, many of them by lowly officials; and if some of these decisions are arbitrary or unjustified, there is no easy way for the ordinary citizen to gain redress.