The Advocate of the People Institution/Ombudsman Legal
Frame
The Constitution of Romania Chapter IV, art. 55-57
Law no. 35/1997 regarding the organisation and
functioning of the institution
The Ruling of organisation and
functioning changed in 1999
Nowadays, the Advocate of the People is
also the Advocate of the Child.
The law, allows children, irrispective
of age, to address to the Advocate of the People, art. 14 paragraph (2)
Law no. 35/1997. The Advocate of the People is the only public authority
that receives complaints from children younger than 14 years. The children
complaints are registered and examined according to the standard
procedures of the institution.
The Advocate of the People(AP) is
independent from any other public authority, art. 2 paragraph (1) of the
above mentioned law.
AP is independent from the Government.
AP addresses to the Government if the Prefect (it’s representative on
the territory), does nor respond to AP requests. AP can , as it is
stipulated in art. 24 - (1) The Advocate of the People is
entitled to notify the Government of any illegal administrative act or
action which comes from central public administration and the prefects.
(2) Where the Government has failed to
take measures within twenty (20) days in connection with illegal
administrative acts or actions which are indicated by the Advocate of the
People, such failure shall be communicated to Parliament.
AP is independent from the Parliament.
AP as stipulated in art. 15 paragraph (4) has the followings restrictions:
Any complaints dealing with acts issued by the Chamber of Deputies, the
Senate, or Parliament, acts and actions of MPs and Senators, …cannot be
subjected to the Advocate of the People Institution, therefore must be
rejected without indicating a reason.
The Parliament (Senate) appoints the AP
and every year this has to present an activity report. His opinions and
his recommendation are not subject to parliamentary or judicial control.
AP addresses to the Parliament if the
Government in 20 days, does not give an answer to it’s solicitation.
The structure of the institution and it’s
ruling (regulation) of organising and functioning is being approved by the
Permanent Bureau of the Senate and is being published in the Official
Monitor.
Until now, Law no.35/1997 has not
suffered any changes. The Regulation from 1997 stipulated that the
institution was organised of 8 departments. One of them was dealing
with problems of child, woman and family protection. From financial
and space reasons, the number of departments was reduced from 8 to 4 and
take took over the problems of the departments that were solved.
NGO’s can notice the AP about the
breach of child’s rights. These have been encouraged to address to AP
especially because AP does not have offices in the territory. The
information sent by NGO represent sources of intervention of it’s own
(ex officio) of the AP.
The activities realised by the AP,
through it’s specialised department (presented in all the reports to the
Parliament for the years 1997/1998, 1999 and 2000) are the followings:
 | to examine complaints distributed by the Ombudsman
regarding the violations of the child’s, woman’s and family’s
rights by the public administration authorities about 80%; |
| intervention on its own initiative ex officio; |
| to initiate its own investigations and inquiries( at
the home of the petitioners from villages, local communities, home
fosters, schools normal and special, hospitals, reeducation centers,
home-hospitals, local authorities); |
| issuing recommendations; |
| drawing up special reports; |
| drawing up brochures describing the activity of The
Advocate of the People Institution; |
| legislative proposals in the field of human rights; all
the proposals that we made were included in the Frame Plan of the UNO
Convention appilcance; |
| organizing audiences for the citizens (adults and
children) in different towns of the country; |
| campaigns of promoting the rights of children in
different towns of the country; |
| campaigns of promoting the AP in the middle of the
children, citiyens, public functioners, mairs ( through courses attended
by 210 mairs from 7 counties); |
| press conferences organised for the children thematic,
frequent participation to radio emissions, shows; AP attitude towards
child rights has been expressed in the frame of some TV shows of maximum
audience like at the news spot and direct shows with citizens active
participation; |
| contributes active and effective to the protection of
child`s rights when their rights are breached; |
| public authorities respect the recommendations emitted
by The Advocate of the People Institution; |
| the legislative proposals that the specialised
department has made, have contributed to the change of the legislation
in the field of human rights (rights of child, rights of the persons
with disabilities, social assistance right); |
| drawing up a Special Report " Protection of
Child`s Rights" year 2000 published in 4000 pieces; 400 pieces in
english; with the support of UNICEF and the Manual of AP (guide for the
citizens) 100 pieces, Phare for Democracy Program; |
| cooperation with NGO, all their petitions being solved
(right to alimony for a refugee group of children, child’s with HIV,
international adoption procedure)etc. |
| child`s rights promoting campaign and of The Advocate
of the People Institution in the middle of the children ( schools,
high-schools, special schools, children-fosters, colleges, hospitals for
children suffering from HIV);with the support of UNICEF; |
| Participant to the Romanian Delegation at UNO with the
Romanian Report on Women Rights; |
| As a result of our interventions many authorities
(commission for child protection, specialised directions), have given up
some practices appr4eciated by us as abusive and breaching child’s
rights(refusal of giving a child to his grandparents, of giving the
alimony to the grandparents that take care of their grandchild’s);
Central authorities have given up the administrative procedures
regarding international adoption; all AP reports, press-conferences and
TV shows criticises the procedures, legislation and practices concerning
International adoptions; AP is the only authority that did such a thing,
the system of international adoption from both points of view-
legislation and administrative procedures-. |
Presently, the National Authority for
Child Protection and Adoption has introduced AP proposals (legislation
improvement for maternal assistants and the protection of not-delinquent
children) in it’s own strategy. Sometimes the authorities take AP
statements and proposals but usually they forget to say where they have
taken them from.
AP id the only institution that
criticises the law regarding judicial declaration of abandon of children.
After AP interventions the local authorities are paying more attention to
the way that the above mentioned law is being applied in every case.
Still, the central authorities have not made a evaluation of the way that
this law is being applied and of the unfavourable effects of it. The
abuses in the application this law were made public by AP.
Now, between AP and public authorities
central and specialised is a better communication the last being more
receptive to AP recommendations.
The main difficulties our department has
are:
