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Netherlands, De Nationale Ombudsman

Organization

On 24 February 2000, Mrs. Liesbeth Horstink-von Meyenfeldt was appointed deputy National Ombudsman by the Lower House of Parliament. She took office on May 1st. Before her appointment she was a senior public prosecutor at the district court in The Hague.

The current deputy National Ombudsman, Ms. Leig de Bruin, will be in function till October 1st, 2000.
 

1999 Annual Report

On 22 March 2000, the National Ombudsman, Dr R. Fernhout, presented his 1999 Annual Report to the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament. The full text of the Report, in Dutch, and a Summary in English can be found on the Internet (http://www.nationaleombudsman.nl).

The outstanding event of 1999 was the replacement of Dr M. Oosting by Dr Fernhout as National Ombudsman. This took place on 1 October 1999.

In 1999 the National Ombudsman received 7681 complaints, 9% fewer than in the 'record year' of 1998 (8437). Since 1996, numbers of complaints have risen and fallen from one year to the next, the variation being mainly due to the volume of complaints against the Ministry of Justice's Immigration and Naturalisation Service, against which there were 1693 complaints (1998: 2352). This represents 22% of the total number of complaints received in 1999.

This year 13,125 people made telephone contact with the National Ombudsman's Office: down 6.8% on the 1998 figure (14,090).

The National Ombudsman received 3616 complaints about government departments (63.6%), 1240 about independent agencies (21.8%), 524 about the police (9.2%) and 293 about local authorities (5.2%). The majority of the complaints about independent agencies related to social security benefits agencies (569), the Information Management Group (210) or the Receiving Licenses Department (88).

The biggest categories related to the field of Justice (2138; 37.6%), Social Affairs and Employment (650; 12.3% ), Finance (605; 15.9%), Foreign Affairs (577; 10.2%) and the Police (524; 9.2%). The majority (just over half) of the complaints about government departments concerned the Ministry of Justice.

A total of 7412 cases were completed. Of these, 20.7% concerned bodies outside the ambit of the National Ombudsman (complaints inadmissible under the Act), 40.3% were admissible but otherwise ineligible for investigation, and the remainder (39%) were dealt with by means of investigation.

Many complaints are not investigated because they are not within the ambit of the National Ombudsman or because the complainant is inadmissible under the Act. In 1999 the main grounds for refusing to investigate a complaint were:

• the demarcation between the powers of the National Ombudsman and those of the courts (11.3%);
• the complainant's failure first to submit it to the body concerned (8.3%);
• that the complaint referred to events too long ago or that it was incomplete (5.2%);
• that it was obviously unfounded (5%).

A total of 2889 complaints were dealt with via investigation and of these 534 led to the issue of a report. This represented 7.2% of all the cases dealt with. The largest categories of reports related to the work of the police (170), and of the ministries of Justice (150), Social Affairs and Employment (69) and Finance (67).

In 2355 cases (81.5%), the investigation was discontinued without a report being issued. Of these, 2260 were discontinued by the National Ombudsman. The reasons for doing so were mainly as follows. A total of 866 cases were transferred to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. In 691 cases, complaints were resolved via intervention (in 460 cases following some investigation by the National Ombudsman). These cases were discontinued because the agency involved had finally satisfied the complainant. In 95 cases, investigations were discontinued at the request of the complainant, because the agency involved had finally given satisfaction.

The National Ombudsman's task is to investigate complaints and decide whether the action concerned was 'proper'. To assist him in this task he has converted the standard of propriety laid down in the National Ombudsman Act into a set of criteria. In the 2889 complaints dealt with in 1999, the following were the criteria of propriety which featured most prominently:

a. promptness (49.5%);
b. active information provision (13.1%);
c. compliance with generally binding regulations (9%);
d. fairness/balance (6.7%).

In 1999, the Constitution was amended to provide an explicit basis for the office of National Ombudsman. The new article 78a of the Constitution defines the terms of reference of the National Ombudsman and the procedure for appointments to the post.
Starting on 1 January 2000, the National Ombudsman Act applies to 24 new municipalities. This means that, as far as local government is concerned, the Act now applies to 62 municipalities (the latter with a combined population of 2.3 million).

During the plenary session of the Lower House of parliament on the National Ombudsman's 1998 Annual Report, the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations concluded that most of the municipalities still have no external complaints procedure. He stated his intention to work together with the Union of Dutch Local Authorities to encourage the development of the external complaints systems and announced that an official-level working party is to consider how nationwide coverage of external complaints systems can be created and funded. The Minister did not exclude the possibility of a statutory duty if there were still too many gaps in provision by 2000. The House voted in favour of the 'Scheltema motion', which called on the government to ensure (if necessary by imposing a statutory duty) that by 2002 every municipality has an external complaints system hedged around with proper safeguards, for instance the National Ombudsman.

The National Ombudsman has repeatedly called for some form of statutory protection for the term 'ombudsman', at least in the public sector. The Minister has likewise noted in a memorandum to the Lower House that the widespread use of the term can cause confusion. However, he regards this as insufficient grounds for giving it statutory protection, especially in view of the fact that the office of National Ombudsman now has its own firm basis in the Dutch Constitution. The Minister expects the statutory provision for internal and external complaints procedures gradually to reduce the confusion.

The National Ombudsman is disappointed that the Minister sees no reason for statutory protection. His own experience suggests otherwise. In his view, the Minister underestimates the problem and is wrong in assuming that it will resolve itself. For example, several publicly-run universities have recently established their own ombudsmen, even though they fall within the ambit of the National Ombudsman. A request to the Minister to change this was ignored. The National Ombudsman feels, therefore, that statutory measures are essential to prevent undesirable use of the term 'ombudsman' in the public sector. In addition, however, an information campaign is required to increase public awareness of the National Ombudsman.
 

INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS

Visits abroad

On 27-28 April National Ombudsman Dr Roel Fernhout participated in the Conference on the Role and Institution of Ombudsman, organized by the Parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, in Prague. Dr. Roel Fernhout delivered a speech in the panel Establishment of the institution of Ombudsman, and he was chair in the panel Methods of Work of Ombudsman.

Foreign visitors received at the office:

• 24 February, Mr. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Ombudsman of Greece.
• 28 February, Mr. Roy Gregory, University of Reading, Centre for Ombudsman Studies (UK).
• 6 March, delegation of teachers of the police academy of the Russian Ministry of Home Affairs. The delegation is in the Netherlands in the framework of a EU project (tempis tacis) for exchange between West and East European Universities.
• 20 March, Dr. Helle Aruniit, Director-General of the Estonian Consumer Protection Board, and delegation.
• 3 April, Mrs. Sri Urip, Member of the Indonesian National Ombudsman Commission.
• 26 April, Mr. Fu Jie, Deputy Secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission of China, and delegation.
• 25 May, Mr. Mohamed Auajjar, Minister of Human Rights of Maroc.

Unacceptable delays in issuing medical reports at Netherlands immigration and naturalisation service (press release)

There are huge backlogs in the processing of requests for medical advice in connection with aliens procedures at the Netherlands Immigration and Naturalisation Service's Medical Reports Section. This has resulted in unacceptable delays in issuing such reports. Having investigated a number of complaints, the National Ombudsman, Mr R. Fernhout, concluded that the Minister of Justice failed, over a long period of time, to take action to remedy the staffing situation within the Section. He recommended that the Minister recruit extra doctors as soon as possible. He also recommended that the IND decide as early as possible in a procedure whether it is necessary to request a medical report.

The Medical Reports Section (BMA) is part of the Ministry of Justice's Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND). The IND may ask the BMA for a medical report in connection with an application for asylum or a residence permit. For example, aliens may provide information about medical complaints or the medication they require when making an application. In 1999, the National Ombudsman received an increasing number of complaints regarding delays in receiving reports. He decided in September 1999 to investigate five such complaints.

His investigations revealed that a substantial backlog arose in the course of 1998. As a result, the time needed to issue a report rose to an average of nine to twelve months in the second half of 1999. The Ombudsman found this unacceptable for two reasons. First, this exceeds by a considerable margin the time limits set by law on decision-making in connection with aliens procedures, and second, it often affects vulnerable people whose health may be damaged by long periods of uncertainty regarding their right to stay in the Netherlands.

A major reason for delays at the BMA is that the number of requests more than doubled between 1997 and 1998 (from 1837 to 3904). In the first eight months of 1999, 2289 requests were received. What is more, the BMA has a shortage of doctors among its staff: in May 1998 there were two doctors working full time and one part time. It was not until mid-1999 that the first steps were taken to increase staffing. By the end of 1999, seven doctors were in permanent employment and four insurance company doctors were employed on a temporary basis. The Ombudsman was of the opinion that the Minister should have recruited more doctors at an earlier stage.  

Shorter procedure and more doctors

During the Ombudsman's investigations the IND indicated that the increase in staffing levels will clear the backlog by August or September 2000 at the latest. The IND's aim is to cut the time needed to issue a report to an average of three to six months. However, the Ombudsman still found this unacceptably long. The statutory time limits on decision-making in the entire aliens procedure will constantly be exceeded since a BMA report is only part of it. The Ombudsman considered that a target of three months maximum would be reasonable. He recommended that the Minister specify this period in the IND working instructions.

In addition, the IND indicated that there is scope for increasing the number of doctors working for the BMA on a temporary basis. The Ombudsman recommended that this be done as soon as possible, so that the BMA can clear the backlog well before the summer of 2000 and achieve an average time of three months for a report.

Finally, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that the IND should consider whether there are reasons for requesting a medical report as soon as it receives an application for a residence permit or a notice of objection. This should also apply in cases where the IND is waiting for a country report or a court decision. By letting the BMA know well in advance that a report is needed, the IND can avoid time-consuming medical examinations later in the procedure. The Ombudsman recommended that the IND revise its working procedures on this point.

Report 1999/510, December 1999

Netherlands, De Nationale Ombudsman

Organization

On 24 February 2000, Mrs. Liesbeth Horstink-von Meyenfeldt was appointed deputy National Ombudsman by the Lower House of Parliament. She took office on May 1st. Before her appointment she was a senior public prosecutor at the district court in The Hague.

The current deputy National Ombudsman, Ms. Leig de Bruin, will be in function till October 1st, 2000.
 

1999 Annual Report

On 22 March 2000, the National Ombudsman, Dr R. Fernhout, presented his 1999 Annual Report to the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament. The full text of the Report, in Dutch, and a Summary in English can be found on the Internet (http://www.nationaleombudsman.nl).

The outstanding event of 1999 was the replacement of Dr M. Oosting by Dr Fernhout as National Ombudsman. This took place on 1 October 1999.

In 1999 the National Ombudsman received 7681 complaints, 9% fewer than in the 'record year' of 1998 (8437). Since 1996, numbers of complaints have risen and fallen from one year to the next, the variation being mainly due to the volume of complaints against the Ministry of Justice's Immigration and Naturalisation Service, against which there were 1693 complaints (1998: 2352). This represents 22% of the total number of complaints received in 1999.

This year 13,125 people made telephone contact with the National Ombudsman's Office: down 6.8% on the 1998 figure (14,090).

The National Ombudsman received 3616 complaints about government departments (63.6%), 1240 about independent agencies (21.8%), 524 about the police (9.2%) and 293 about local authorities (5.2%). The majority of the complaints about independent agencies related to social security benefits agencies (569), the Information Management Group (210) or the Receiving Licenses Department (88).

The biggest categories related to the field of Justice (2138; 37.6%), Social Affairs and Employment (650; 12.3% ), Finance (605; 15.9%), Foreign Affairs (577; 10.2%) and the Police (524; 9.2%). The majority (just over half) of the complaints about government departments concerned the Ministry of Justice.

A total of 7412 cases were completed. Of these, 20.7% concerned bodies outside the ambit of the National Ombudsman (complaints inadmissible under the Act), 40.3% were admissible but otherwise ineligible for investigation, and the remainder (39%) were dealt with by means of investigation.

Many complaints are not investigated because they are not within the ambit of the National Ombudsman or because the complainant is inadmissible under the Act. In 1999 the main grounds for refusing to investigate a complaint were:

• the demarcation between the powers of the National Ombudsman and those of the courts (11.3%);
• the complainant's failure first to submit it to the body concerned (8.3%);
• that the complaint referred to events too long ago or that it was incomplete (5.2%);
• that it was obviously unfounded (5%).

A total of 2889 complaints were dealt with via investigation and of these 534 led to the issue of a report. This represented 7.2% of all the cases dealt with. The largest categories of reports related to the work of the police (170), and of the ministries of Justice (150), Social Affairs and Employment (69) and Finance (67).

In 2355 cases (81.5%), the investigation was discontinued without a report being issued. Of these, 2260 were discontinued by the National Ombudsman. The reasons for doing so were mainly as follows. A total of 866 cases were transferred to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. In 691 cases, complaints were resolved via intervention (in 460 cases following some investigation by the National Ombudsman). These cases were discontinued because the agency involved had finally satisfied the complainant. In 95 cases, investigations were discontinued at the request of the complainant, because the agency involved had finally given satisfaction.

The National Ombudsman's task is to investigate complaints and decide whether the action concerned was 'proper'. To assist him in this task he has converted the standard of propriety laid down in the National Ombudsman Act into a set of criteria. In the 2889 complaints dealt with in 1999, the following were the criteria of propriety which featured most prominently:

a. promptness (49.5%);
b. active information provision (13.1%);
c. compliance with generally binding regulations (9%);
d. fairness/balance (6.7%).

In 1999, the Constitution was amended to provide an explicit basis for the office of National Ombudsman. The new article 78a of the Constitution defines the terms of reference of the National Ombudsman and the procedure for appointments to the post.
Starting on 1 January 2000, the National Ombudsman Act applies to 24 new municipalities. This means that, as far as local government is concerned, the Act now applies to 62 municipalities (the latter with a combined population of 2.3 million).

During the plenary session of the Lower House of parliament on the National Ombudsman's 1998 Annual Report, the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations concluded that most of the municipalities still have no external complaints procedure. He stated his intention to work together with the Union of Dutch Local Authorities to encourage the development of the external complaints systems and announced that an official-level working party is to consider how nationwide coverage of external complaints systems can be created and funded. The Minister did not exclude the possibility of a statutory duty if there were still too many gaps in provision by 2000. The House voted in favour of the 'Scheltema motion', which called on the government to ensure (if necessary by imposing a statutory duty) that by 2002 every municipality has an external complaints system hedged around with proper safeguards, for instance the National Ombudsman.

The National Ombudsman has repeatedly called for some form of statutory protection for the term 'ombudsman', at least in the public sector. The Minister has likewise noted in a memorandum to the Lower House that the widespread use of the term can cause confusion. However, he regards this as insufficient grounds for giving it statutory protection, especially in view of the fact that the office of National Ombudsman now has its own firm basis in the Dutch Constitution. The Minister expects the statutory provision for internal and external complaints procedures gradually to reduce the confusion.

The National Ombudsman is disappointed that the Minister sees no reason for statutory protection. His own experience suggests otherwise. In his view, the Minister underestimates the problem and is wrong in assuming that it will resolve itself. For example, several publicly-run universities have recently established their own ombudsmen, even though they fall within the ambit of the National Ombudsman. A request to the Minister to change this was ignored. The National Ombudsman feels, therefore, that statutory measures are essential to prevent undesirable use of the term 'ombudsman' in the public sector. In addition, however, an information campaign is required to increase public awareness of the National Ombudsman.
 

INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS

Visits abroad

On 27-28 April National Ombudsman Dr Roel Fernhout participated in the Conference on the Role and Institution of Ombudsman, organized by the Parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, in Prague. Dr. Roel Fernhout delivered a speech in the panel Establishment of the institution of Ombudsman, and he was chair in the panel Methods of Work of Ombudsman.

Foreign visitors received at the office:

• 24 February, Mr. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Ombudsman of Greece.
• 28 February, Mr. Roy Gregory, University of Reading, Centre for Ombudsman Studies (UK).
• 6 March, delegation of teachers of the police academy of the Russian Ministry of Home Affairs. The delegation is in the Netherlands in the framework of a EU project (tempis tacis) for exchange between West and East European Universities.
• 20 March, Dr. Helle Aruniit, Director-General of the Estonian Consumer Protection Board, and delegation.
• 3 April, Mrs. Sri Urip, Member of the Indonesian National Ombudsman Commission.
• 26 April, Mr. Fu Jie, Deputy Secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission of China, and delegation.
• 25 May, Mr. Mohamed Auajjar, Minister of Human Rights of Maroc.

Unacceptable delays in issuing medical reports at Netherlands immigration and naturalisation service (press release)

There are huge backlogs in the processing of requests for medical advice in connection with aliens procedures at the Netherlands Immigration and Naturalisation Service's Medical Reports Section. This has resulted in unacceptable delays in issuing such reports. Having investigated a number of complaints, the National Ombudsman, Mr R. Fernhout, concluded that the Minister of Justice failed, over a long period of time, to take action to remedy the staffing situation within the Section. He recommended that the Minister recruit extra doctors as soon as possible. He also recommended that the IND decide as early as possible in a procedure whether it is necessary to request a medical report.

The Medical Reports Section (BMA) is part of the Ministry of Justice's Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND). The IND may ask the BMA for a medical report in connection with an application for asylum or a residence permit. For example, aliens may provide information about medical complaints or the medication they require when making an application. In 1999, the National Ombudsman received an increasing number of complaints regarding delays in receiving reports. He decided in September 1999 to investigate five such complaints.

His investigations revealed that a substantial backlog arose in the course of 1998. As a result, the time needed to issue a report rose to an average of nine to twelve months in the second half of 1999. The Ombudsman found this unacceptable for two reasons. First, this exceeds by a considerable margin the time limits set by law on decision-making in connection with aliens procedures, and second, it often affects vulnerable people whose health may be damaged by long periods of uncertainty regarding their right to stay in the Netherlands.

A major reason for delays at the BMA is that the number of requests more than doubled between 1997 and 1998 (from 1837 to 3904). In the first eight months of 1999, 2289 requests were received. What is more, the BMA has a shortage of doctors among its staff: in May 1998 there were two doctors working full time and one part time. It was not until mid-1999 that the first steps were taken to increase staffing. By the end of 1999, seven doctors were in permanent employment and four insurance company doctors were employed on a temporary basis. The Ombudsman was of the opinion that the Minister should have recruited more doctors at an earlier stage.  

Shorter procedure and more doctors

During the Ombudsman's investigations the IND indicated that the increase in staffing levels will clear the backlog by August or September 2000 at the latest. The IND's aim is to cut the time needed to issue a report to an average of three to six months. However, the Ombudsman still found this unacceptably long. The statutory time limits on decision-making in the entire aliens procedure will constantly be exceeded since a BMA report is only part of it. The Ombudsman considered that a target of three months maximum would be reasonable. He recommended that the Minister specify this period in the IND working instructions.

In addition, the IND indicated that there is scope for increasing the number of doctors working for the BMA on a temporary basis. The Ombudsman recommended that this be done as soon as possible, so that the BMA can clear the backlog well before the summer of 2000 and achieve an average time of three months for a report.

Finally, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that the IND should consider whether there are reasons for requesting a medical report as soon as it receives an application for a residence permit or a notice of objection. This should also apply in cases where the IND is waiting for a country report or a court decision. By letting the BMA know well in advance that a report is needed, the IND can avoid time-consuming medical examinations later in the procedure. The Ombudsman recommended that the IND revise its working procedures on this point.

Report 1999/510, December 1999