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saerTaSoriso samarTlis Jurnali, #1, 2008 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, N1, 2008
As a rule, in a majority of the countries
which have ombudsman’s institution such reports
are submitted to bodies electing or appointing
ombudsman once a year. Public Defender
of Georgia operates on a regulation
which is exception from the general rule. In
1999, when joining Council of Europe, the latter
set as one of the conditions to Georgia’s
membership of the organization to introduce
the following amendments to the Organic Law
on “Public Defender of Georgia”: Public Defender
has to submit reports to the Parliament
not annually, but biannually. The Parliament
of Georgia, accepting the afore-mentioned
requirement of the Council of Europe, amended
the Article 22 paragraph 1 of the Organic
Law on 23 June 1999. The amendment reads
as follows: “Public Defender of Georgia shall
submit a report on situation regarding protection
of human rights and freedoms in the country
to the Parliament of Georgia once in every
six months, in March and October of a calendar
year”.
The foremost purpose of the Report is to
inform the ombudsman’s electing or appointing
body about situation on protection of human
rights and freedoms in a country, identify
legal acts violating human rights and freedoms,
along with submitting the recommendation to
amend or annul them, divulge state bodies and
officials whose actions resulted into violation
of human rights. The level of trust towards the
ombudsman’s institution and growth of its influence
within the wider public largely depends
on facts and comments incorporated into ombudsman’s
report.
Renowned international researcher working
on the topic of ombudsman’s institution Fleiner-Jester
considers that “ombudsman institution
may be ascribed to special institutions of
public law supervision”. At the same time Russian
Professor Boytsova states that “ombudsman,
as a public law institution, serves public
interests; therefore the reports produced by
ombudsman may be considered as public complaints”.
According to the practice established
worldwide, ombudsman actively cooperates
with the media and uses it as a means to influence
the respective bodies in order to restore
rights violated by them, and disclose
gaps identified in activities of the executive
branch of the government. Through relations
with mass media ombudsman provides information
to the society about the work undertaken
and results achieved, which contributes to
strengthen institution’s authority, and its increased
ability to influence over state authorities.
This, ultimately, provides for better possibility
of restoring abused rights of human
beings.
Despite the fact that ombudsmen throughout
the world are committed to reinforce trust
between an individual and administration,
each country has its specificities in relation to
particular goals and objectives, which are identified
by a given ombudsman’s institution.
Ombudsman works in an environment characterizing
and specific only to a given country,
and respectively, the institution’s set-up
and means of operation may differ from a
country to another. This is related with the
specificities of any given state, as well as adjusting
a classical model of ombudsman’s institution
to own, in some occasions to absolutely
unique legal and administrative systems.
This is not surprising, as a country, which introduces
the ombudsman’s institution, tries its
amalgamation into already existing domestic
legal system. This is exactly the reason why
ombudsman institutions, despite the common
features, have their unique specific features
which are prompted by their national traditions,
existing system of control and supervision, distribution
of competences between them, etc.
Ombudsman entered the world institutionalism
as a legislative organ’s entrusted body
to deal with protection of human rights, however
it is not a legislative institution; therefore
stressing its independence in both – theory
and practice is appropriate. It is true that ombudsman
expands and fills in the parliamentary
oversight functions with regard to other
state institutions, however he/she is at the
same time accountable to a legislative organ
along with acting independently, being free
from pressure of any other state body or official.
Ombudsman abides only by law which itself
ascertains ombudsman’s independence
at the normative level, or more specifically,
creates legal basis for such independence.
The fact that this institution does not belong
to any branches of government also reflects
independence of ombudsman. Often degree
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