As the six year-term of the Human Rights Ombudsman ended on Wednesday, 21. 2. the Human Rights Ombudsman Matjaz Hanzek passed the baton to dr.  Zdenka Cebasek Travnik. He kept the promise he made when he was sworn in - to be a thorn in the side of the authorities.

Hanzek came to office as an outsider, having been virtually unknown before but for his social activism in the 1980s and his role on the avant-garde arts group OHO.

When he was elected in early 2001, he said an ombudsman should be "a terrible pain in the neck", particularly for the state. "I understand my new office as a protection of citizens against their own state," Hanzek said, conspicuously dressed in a sweater, standing out amidst the suit-and-tie crowd in parliament.

True to his word, Hanzek attended a rally in support of illegal immigrants and against intolerance just two days after the inauguration. This presaged an ongoing conflict with the government, which would only escalate as he neared the end of his term.

During his term, the Ombudsman's Office repeatedly urged the government to resolve the issue of the erased, some 18,000 people from the former Yugoslav republics who were removed from the permanent residence registry in 1992 in what was later found to be an unlawful erasure.

Another mainstay of his criticism was court backlogs, police violence and police complaint procedures. He also called for the implementation of Constitutional Court decisions (notably on the erased), urged the government to adopt a law against domestic violence and lately warned against the uncontrolled spread of hate speech.

Hanzek spared no criticism, blacklisting and shaming institutions into compliance. The main target of his criticism at the beginning was the police, but towards the end of his term he singled the police out as the institution which had proved to be the most cooperative in responding to his initiatives and acting on them.

Hanzek's apex, as well as nadir, came in the final months of 2006, when a Roma family was moved from their illegal settlement near Ambrus, in local Slovenia, after tensions with the locals escalated to the extent that police had to protect them from an angry mob.

Hanzek notified the Council of Europe, saying that the relocation of the Strojans meant the end of the rule of law. He lambasted the government for "giving in to the pressure of an angry mob", expressing fear that such actions could become an example for future actions.

That took him on a collision course with the government, with the centre-right parties vilifying him and accusing him of nothing short of treason. He stood accused of being politically biased instead of independent.

However, he looked to be vindicated when the CoE Human Rights Commissioner came to Slovenia to get a first-hand account of the situation, saying the relocation of the Strojans was unacceptable. In the meantime, the fate of Strojans gained coverage in the international press.

In an interview for STA last week, Hanzek said some things had changed for the better during his term, while some burning issues remained, notably discrimination and hate speech.

"Human rights have no ideological or political colour, I group them according to whether they are violated or respected. Allegations about political bias are designed to wilfully ignore the role of the Ombudsman in order to preclude the respect of the rights whose violations I highlight."

His outspoken approach won him friends and foes alike. His main critics have accused him of focusing overly on marginal groups, a charge he has turned down on numerous occasions.

His dialogue with the authorities is also viewed with mixed feelings. According to Matej Makarovic of the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences, Hanzek worked well for the most part of his term, but too often acted politically and got engaged in overly political debates, which hurt his images as well as that of the office of the human rights ombudsman.

This view is not entirely shared by another professor at the same faculty. Vlado Miheljak told STA recently that Hanzek will end up being the benchmark for all future persons serving as the ombudsman. He praises Hanzek for being a vocal and staunch defender of human rights.

A new ombudsman dr. Zdenka Cebasek-Travnik sressed in her inaugural speech in parliament as well as subsequent interviews, that she will focus on the rights of children and older people, who are facing the greatest number of injustices but are the least equipped to defend themselves. She says her motto will be "always listen to all sides".