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IOI President Chris Field with Human Rights Ombudsman Peter Svetina
The President of the IOI – International Ombudsman Institute - Chris Field, who is also the human rights ombudsman for Western Australia and on an official visit with his Slovenian colleague Peter Svetina, advocated the strengthening of the role of national institutions for human rights upon the conclusion of his visit to Slovenia.
He also emphasised the importance of the financial independence and operation of ombudsman organisations and national institutions for human rights, which after all stems from both the so-called Venice and Paris Principles. In his opinion, these organisations can only perform their tasks effectively if they are independent from the bodies or institutions they supervise. Field stressed that independence is not reflected only in contextual operation but the possibility of independent contextual operation is to a great extent dependent on financial independence and autonomy.
“Just like in business the public sector top experts cannot work solely on ethical drive, but their expert knowledge must be appropriately evaluated. Moreover, the financing of the operation of independent institutions must be arranged in the manner that it does not allow for any influence on their operation,” clearly stated the President of the International Ombudsman Institute Chris Field. In his words, he was surprised that for several years decision makers in Slovenia have not realised the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia regarding the incompatibility of the Public Finance Act with the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia due to the irreverence of the financial autonomy of four independent state institutions, even though the deadline for its execution expired in the end of December 2021. “It is crucial that independent institutions are autonomous also in the financials sense, since only this way they can perform supervision of the operation of the authorities in a professional manner and without fear from potential retaliatory political measures,” added President Field.
For the full respect of independence of institutions such as the Human Rights Ombudsman, President Field believes that a constructive dialogue of decision makers about the all questions pertaining to the operation of independent institutions, especially when appointing their competences, is also important. He emphasised that the decision-making on tasks and their execution must be in the domain of the institutions which by their nature and legal status are independent. “I fully support the arguments of my colleague Ombudsman Svetina that in the future politics should not add new competences to the Human Rights Ombudsman with laws or other regulations without prior consultation or detailed contextual coordination. After all, this should also consider the fact that the primary task of the Ombudsman is to fulfil duties directly originating from the Slovenian Constitution,” stresses the IOI President. Ombudsman Svetina informed him of the recent situation when, with the Radiotelevizija Slovenija Act, the institution was, without prior information and coordination, awarded the full power to appoint one member to the Council of the national radio and television broadcaster on the proposal of non-governmental organisations working in the field of human rights protection.
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Source: The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia
