Newsletter No. 2
Dear colleagues,
The new homepage for the IOI Europe has been finally set up ( http://www.ioi-europe.org). As already reported the homepage contains a membership list, the by-laws of the IOI and the European Region, information about the projects and plans of the IOI-Europe and it’s members and a presentation of the legal basis of the Ombudsman Institutions of Europe (see attached homepage/first page). We would kindly ask you to see if the data of your institution are correct (link: “Members”). Since we do not have access to all the necessary information about our members, please provide us as soon as possible with the missing information by mail to peter.kostelka@volksanwaltschaft.gv.at.
The core of our homepage shall be the collection of the legal bases of the members of the IOI. As we expressed in our last Newsletter of February 2005 this seems essential for the exchange of experiences and information among the members of the IOI-Europe as well as to support citizens, who either need a helpful hand or are just interested in our work. It has not been possible for us to download all relevant documents of our members in English. Therefore please have a look what is possibly missing and contact us to update the homepage.
The Board of Directors of the I.O.I. will have its next meeting in November 2005. We consider it essential that we elaborate a program for the further development of the European Region in advance that should not just respect the increasing number of the members of our region, but also the fact of the various existing Ombudsman organisations and co-operation in Europe . It is necessary for us to know your opinions and suggestions on that issue and invite you again to put forward your proposals. In that context we may remind you of the limited financial means of the IOI Europe. The more contributions we receive, the better we can convey the needs and ideas of the European Region within the I.O.I. and represent our members.
We may remind you as well of the call to host the IX. International Ombudsman Conference in 2008. It may be possible to present an European host since the European Region has the largest number of members of the I.O.I.
A Fundamental Rights Agency shall be established by proposal of the European Commission. Referring to the article by the European Ombudsman in his last Newsletter No 4, April 2005, page 13, the Board of Directors of the European Region is concerned about possible overlapping activities of this agency with the tasks of Ombudsman institutions.
We underline the opinion of our colleague Prof. Diamandouros that “ombudsmen play a vital role in relation to the protection and promotion of human rights, and that the Agency’s tasks should therefore be defined in a way that helps it to develop a good relationship with the European network of ombudsmen.”
According to our latest information the final draft of the Commission is expected soon and can be discussed among the members of the IOI. If you have concerns on that issue it seems appropriate to convey your statements directly to the European Commission.
As already announced, the next General Assembly of the IOI-Europe will take place on June 12, 2006 in Vienna/Austria within a conference of IOI Europe members (June 12-13, 2006 in Vienna). The invitations and detailed program will be sent in due course.
As an introduction to the conference some results of a research study of the University of Vienna on a comparison of European ombudsman institutions shall be presented. This project will be managed by Univ. Prof. Dr. Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer, substitute member of the Austrian Constitutional Court . The board of directors agreed in the last meeting that it would support the study by distributing the questionnaire, you should have received by now, among the members of the IOI Europe. It would benefit us all if you could support this study as well by answering the questionnaire and providing Prof. Kucsko-Stadlmayer with the requested information.
According to the “Rules for the European Region of the International Ombudsman Institute” we have offered the European Ombudsman Institute (EOI) the renewing of a Joint Co-ordinating Committee and will keep you informed about the outcome of the talks with our colleagues.