Article 92 of the Constitution of Croatia provides that the People's Ombudsman, as a Commissioner of the Croatian Parliament should protect the constitutional and legal rights of citizens in proceedings before the state administration and bodies vested with public authority. The Ombudsman, who must be a Croatian citizen, is to be elected by the Croatian Parliament for a term of eight years.

More

Article 92 of the Constitution of Croatia provides that the People's Ombudsman, as a Commissioner of the Croatian Parliament should protect the constitutional and legal rights of citizens in proceedings before the state administration and bodies vested with public authority. The Ombudsman, who must be a Croatian citizen, is to be elected by the Croatian Parliament for a term of eight years. The conditions for the election and the relief of office and on the scope and mode of work of the Ombudsman and his Deputies are to be regulated by law. Article 92 was amended in 2001 to provide specifically for the protection of the constitutional and legal rights of citizens in proceedings before the Ministry of Defence, the armed forces and security services, and before the bodies of the local and regional self-government and the right to local and regional self-government before the governmental bodies within the office of the People's Ombudsman.

The powers of the Ombudsman are set out in the Law on the Ombudsman, enacted in 1992.(1) The Law allows the Ombudsman to examine individual cases of civil rights violations by organs of the state and also examine questions of interest to the protection of constitutional and legal rights. The Ombudsman may access any relevant documents of state organs and such persons must respond to questions put to them by the Ombudsman and submit reports if requested. Under the Law the Ombudsman warns, informs, suggests and provides recommendations to state organs that must then respond to the Ombudsman within 30 days with details of the measures taken to comply with any recommendations. The Ombudsman may not deal with cases that are already the subject of legal or other proceedings. The Ombudsman reports annually to Parliament on the information collected in regard to the degree to which the constitutional and legal rights of citizens are respected and also suggests any changes necessary to protect these rights.

Analysis provided by: Anisa Niaz LLM (Public Law), United Kingdom.

Hide