On the initiative and in the presence of Human Rights Ombudsmen from Slovenia, Greece, and the Netherlands, on 16 January 2024, in Manchester, Great Britain, under the auspices of the British Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Rob Behrens, the Learning Academy came alive within the framework of the IOI - International Ombudsman Institute. It was attended by almost 100 participants, including Slovenia. The Academy is primarily intended for expert workers in ombudsman institutions who deal with questions and complaints from people who believe that their human rights or fundamental freedoms have been violated. The goal is to share experience and best practices between institutions, to connect and collaborate, and to strengthen the knowledge in various specific fields.
At the first meeting, aided by experts, they dealt with mediation which is an informal, non-binding, and confidential manner of solving disputes, in which parties voluntarily and with the help of a neutral third person (mediator) try to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute or while considering wishes and needs of both parties search for common solutions. At a separate meeting, these were also sought by heads of institutions, among whom was also the Slovenian Human Rights Ombudsman Peter Svetina, and they primarily focused on the field of working with vulnerable target groups. In the discussion, Ombudsman Svetina emphasised that it is important for each and every individual to feel human rights, while countries or governments are first and foremost responsible for their provision and realisation, even though contemporary perception of human rights is spreading to the private sector, including business.
“Education, raising awareness, promotion, and strengthening of the culture of respecting human rights is essential, as is the provision of greater accessibility to legal remedies, and the expansion and strengthening of informal forms of human rights protection. In December 2023, the Slovenian Human Rights Ombudsman thus published an overview of international standards of our operation. The purpose of this is to bring the understanding of the significance of informal mechanisms of human rights protection, the operation of which has long been not solely a matter of good will of an individual country, but is becoming or has become an expected international standard,” explained the Slovenian Human Rights Ombudsman. In his opinion, it is important to strengthen the understanding that ombudsmen present an informal mechanism for strengthening the principle of good governance, which derives from the Venice Principles, hence he strived for this area to get special attention in the future within the Learning Academy.
On the margins of the meeting, on 17 January 2024 the IOI Board of Directors for Europe met, of which Ombudsman Svetina has been a member since 2021. In December 2023, he was re-elected (in addition to his colleagues from the Netherlands, Belgium, Malta, Cyprus, Italy, and Ukraine), which also maintains his membership on the global executive committee of the IOI, the president of which is Chris Field, who virtualy participated at the meeting in Manchester.
The IOI, which was founded in 1978, unites more than 200 ombudsman organisations all over the world, while its work is devoted to human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Slovenian institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman has been a part of it since its own establishment.
