Austria | People’s Advocate visits Austrian Ombudsman Board

Austrian Ombudsman and IOI Secretary General Günther Kräuter welcomed Albanian Ombudsman Igli Totozani at the premises of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) in Vienna on 7 July 2015.

During the morning session of the visit, Ombudsman Kräuter introduced the Austrian Ombudsman Board, its organizational structure, its mandate and responsibilities as well as the general case handling and investigative procedures. Ombudsman Totozani showed particular interest in the constitutional mandate of the AOB and its independent and impartial working practice. Both parties confirmed their interest in facilitating mutual, bilateral projects in the near future, such as sending a legal expert from the AOB to the Albanian Office for on-site staff training.

Ombudsman Totozani – who is also a member of the Board of the IOI’s European Region – took the opportunity of this visit to tackle the recurring problem of Ombudsman offices under threat due to political and/or economic crises and brought interesting views to the discussion on how the IOI could (re)act in such cases.

The focus of the afternoon session of the visit lay on the protection and promotion of human rights, since both, the Albanian as well as the Austrian Ombudsman institution, act as National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) in their countries. Ombudsman Totozani met with the head of one of the Austrian NPM’s expert commissions and with a member of the Human Rights Advisory Council (i.e. the council established as an advisory body to the Austrian NPM). Both human rights experts presented the Austrian NPM to Ombudsman Totozani and to explain in more details the mechanisms installed to ensure the implementation and the smooth handling of the preventive human rights monitoring in Austria.

Source: Austrian Ombudsman Board, Austria