Tech & Rights

How Many Signatures Does It Take for Romania's Ombudsperson to Act?

Many Romanians are unaware that the national ombudsperson can protect their constitutional rights, but a new project by local NGOs aims to inform citizens and encourage them to seek help when needed.

by Mihaela Pop
In theory, one signature should be enough; the last 20 years, however, show us that Romanians don't know how to take advantage of their ombudsperson, and that this office is not putting too much effort into doing its job.

In Romania, we hear quite often people saying, “We are European citizens and have rights." Such words are meant to express disagreement or indignation towards actions of politicians, people in power or other groups.

But what if we were to remove the word "European" from this sentence? Romanians could say, "We are citizens and we have rights." They would definitely be right. We all know that, as citizens of Romania, they have rights. These rights are enshrined in the very first lines of the Constitution, in section two - "Fundamental rights, liberties, and duties."

Low awareness

Many citizens are unaware that the rights from the Constitution can be protected, as a result of a complaint or ex officio, by an institution that, according to the Constitution, has exactly this mandate: the Office of the Ombudsperson ("People’s Advocate").

"The ombudsperson is appointed for a term of 5 years to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals," reads the Constitution. Even fewer citizens are aware that when they have one of their rights violated by public authorities — rights such as the right to health, or the right to receive public information from local or central governments — they can seek justice, before addressing the courts, through the ombudsperson.

This is the reason why the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania - the Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) and two other Romanian NGOs have been working for the past two years on a project aimed at making the Office of the Ombudsperson more popular among citizens, which would contribute as well to making the institution more efficient.

Listening to the people

The NGOs assessed the work of the ombudsperson, compared it with the work of similar institutions in Europe, and tried to understand what works and what does not work in its form of organization. The project outlines areas the NGOs thought could be improved and, most importantly, urges people to address the ombudsperson whenever their rights are violated.

For the past two weeks, the NGOs went to all the Romanian cities where there is a local office of the ombudsperson —Pitești, Ploiești, Oradea, Iași, Alba Iulia, Timișoara, Brașov, Suceava, and Cluj. There they talked with citizens about the mandate of the ombudsperson.

The organizations collected ideas and listened to opinions about how this institution should or should not operate. Some had negative views, such as "it does not work," "it is politicized," or "we'd better close it down"; others were more positive, saying, “We need a lawyer who is appointed by the people, because this is what this institution is called — the People’s Advocate." (This is the word-for-word translation of the Romanian name for the ombudsperson's title.)

Image problem

The conclusion was that regardless of the pros and cons, people feel the need for a greater involvement of this institution in the problems of Romanian society, where the government issues emergency ordinances even when there is no urgency and where the health system has so many deficiencies.

This institution has been functioning in Romania for almost 20 years, but its legal framework has remained almost unchanged. The excessive politicization of the institution's management has contributed, as it happened also with the National Television Service, to the permanent erosion of its image and with less and less citizens having confidence in its usefulness and effectiveness.

Romanians need an effective and efficient ombudsperson. Efficiency is measured by the continued involvement of the institution in each and every single complaint lodged in by a simple citizen, who should have access to it at reduced costs.

Or, as someone said at the meeting in Timișoara: "How many signatures are needed to convince the ombudsperson to do something, to get involved?" All that is needed is that every citizen lodging a complaint signs it. And citizens need to lodge complaints every time their rights are violated.

And because we are citizens and we have rights, we invite you to see and learn more about our project on drepturicivile.ro.


Mihaela Pop is a graduate of the Law Faculty at the University of Bucharest and holds a master's in Public Communication from the National Defense University. She has worked with civil society groups since 2014, focusing on human rights, particularly freedom of expression. She joined APADOR-CH in 2015.

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