Il Mediatore europeo, ombudsman dell'Unione: prime osservazioni empiriche

The European Ombudsman was established in 1993 by the Treaty of Maastricht and started working in 1995. The first part of this article briefly describes the history of the institution of the ombudsman, from its birth in 1809 in Sweden to its worldwide diffusion, which dates back to the sixties. The author affirms that there is a direct relationship between the establishment of an ombudsman and the nature of citizenship rights in a given legal system: ombudsmen have appeared in those institutional contexts that he defines as "societarist" (where public powers project themselves on society) and not in those systems that we can describe as "statalist" (where the government is at the service of society). The activity of the Ombudsman is analysed in relation with the defence of human rights and with its characteristics of publicity and informality. The procedure followed by the ombudsman is inspired by reasonableness and based on a judgement of equity. The second part of the article focuses especially on the results of the European Ombudsman’s activity in the last five years. An attempt is made to draw up a preliminary evaluation of the institution’s success on the basis of the statistics issued by the Ombudsman’s own office with regard to claims, investigations, institutions concerned with complainants and the extent to which procedures have been put in place and executed.

Luigi Cominelli, Il Mediatore europeo, ombudsman dell'Unione: prime osservazioni empiriche in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO " 1/2001, pp , DOI: