Today, the Ombudsman, Soledad Becerril, presented the 2016 Annual Report to the President of the Lower House of the Spanish Parliament, Ana Pastor, and the President of the Upper House, Pío García Escudero.
The Annual Report describes the activity of the Office in a year that has witnessed an increase in the number of resolutions for government authorities to amend their procedures or regulations (1,771, in comparison to 1,503 in 2015) and in the number of own-initiative inquiries into problems detected by the Office (872, in comparison to 522 in 2015).
The Office’s average response times have been reduced and the website www.defensordelpueblo.es, which in 2016 had 456.215 visits, has been reformed. It now takes on average 27.99 days to reply to the general public, compared with 62 days in 2013.
In 2016, the Office dealt with 554,788 people through its different citizen service channels (website, social networks, telephone service, presence-based service, chats…)
For the first time, the Office conducted surveys and held consultations on topics of interest, with the participation of about 23,000 people. Members of the public were asked about the needs of coeliac disease sufferers; architectural barriers in roads and public spaces; whether the start of the school year had gone smoothly; and whether they had been affected by the assignment of their receivables from banks to other sorts of institutions.
DATA
In 2016, 1,515 recommendations and suggestions were made and 256 reminders of legal duties were given. Furthermore, 16,485 written complaints, 39 applications for appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality and appeal for legal protection were received and 872 own-initiative inquiries were launched.
The matters that most concerned the general public were those to do with the public function and public employment (3,440), the administration of justice (1,694) and economic activity (1,507)
During her speech in the Lower House of Parliament, the Ombudsman took stock of the work carried out by the Office last year and highlighted some of the most important matters.
HIGHLIGHTS
Hosting of refugees
Twenty-six recommendations were made to improve the system for hosting and the integration of people seeking refuge in Spain. Likewise, an EU-wide common policy on asylum has been called for “to avoid bureaucracy and the different criteria in procedures and deadlines from turning applications into labyrinths for applicants and public servants”. In October, in conjunction with the UNHCR, the Office of the Ombudsman held a conference to promote coordination between government authorities and speed up the hosting of refugees and their integration in Spain. In December, the Ombudsman visited Thermopylae and Eloneas refugee camps in Greece. Then, in February, she went to the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) where she visited the transit centre for refugees in Tabanovce.
Protection of mortgagors
The ruling of the European Union Court of Justice’s ruling of 21 December 2016 compels banks to give back everything charged with mortgage ground clauses. The Office of the Ombudsman had proposed the creation of an extrajudicial system that enabled the customers concerned to avoid having to take the matter to court. The recent Royal Decree law 1/2017 on urgent measures for protecting consumers as regards ground clauses provides for the creation of the extrajudicial system recommended by the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Office also insisted on the need to regulate the activity of debt collection companies to protect debtors’ rights and avoid some companies from using barely ethical debt-collection methods. The Ministry of Justice has informed the Office of its intention to regulate the work of those companies.
Energy poverty
The Office of the Ombudsman considers that an electricity supply is essential for a decent life and a necessary condition for exercising other fundamental rights. So, it is continuing to pursue the matter of the social rebate, the high proportion of the fixed part of the electricity bill, the possibility of flex the contracted power and of deferring debts contracted by members of the public with electrical energy companies, without cutting off supply.
Retired writers’ pensions
The “Seguir Creando” (Keep Creating) Platform, composed of artists and creators, asked for the intervention of the Office of the Ombudsman in the light of the situation facing many professionals from the world of culture, who have had to choose between continuing their artistic work or drawing their retirement pension. The Office asked the Government for greater flexibility in order to make collecting the full pension compatible with an income from professional activities.
The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport has informed the Office that it is working with the Ministry of Employment and Social Security on a series of regulatory measures that enable drawing a retirement pension to be compatible with carrying out activities such as courses, lectures, talks, seminars and performing literary, artistic or scientific works.
Environment
Fourteen city councils were asked about their short-term plans for combating air pollution and about the information that members of the public were provided with. The city councils of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Santander, León, Zaragoza and Avilés have explained the steps that they are taking to combat air pollution to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Cancer patients
The Office is endeavouring to improve protection for cancer patients in social and work circles at a time when scientific prospects indicate that the reality of the fight against this disease is going to undergo major changes.
Furthermore, the Office has launched an own-initiative inquiry taking in all the health services into delays in performing breast reconstruction with prosthetic breast implants on women who have had a mastectomy following breast cancer.
School refectories
Recommendations were made to 62 Spanish municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants to establish or bolster a food guarantee system, especially at times when schools are closed, for households with under-age children that are in a situation of greater vulnerability.
Most of the local entities indicated that not only do they have allowances for families with under-age children in a situation of vulnerability during periods when schools are closed, but that the allowances are granted all the year round.
Electronic medical prescription
Moves continued with the Ministry of Health and the Self-Governing Regional Governments on introducing the electronic prescription and on its compatibility (interoperability) in the whole of the National Health System.
If the forecasts of the Ministry and the majority of regional ministries are right, the process should be practically completed in 2017.
Justice
In 2016, the Office of the Ombudsman made recommendations to promote the creation of new judicial bodies. It has asked, among other things, for the creation of a new labour court in Algeciras, a family court and a criminal court in Guadalajara and two new commercial courts in Murcia.
Apart from that, the Office started an own-initiative inquiry with all the Self-Government Regions and with the Ministry of Justice to establish what the legal system is that applies to the psycho-social teams at the family courts. Catalonia, Andalusia and Aragón have accepted recommendations for improving the situation that these teams are in.
Electoral system
A recommendation was made to enable people with disability to vote in the elections. The Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality has announced plans to strengthen the right to vote of people with disability.
Added to that, the Interior Ministry accepted a recommendation to speed up the vote by post from abroad.
Protecting students with disability
An own-initiative inquiry was conducted at 47 Spanish public universities and at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport on the subject of reserving a percentage of places for admission to post-graduate level courses for students affected by disability.
After establishing that only six of them did reserve that percentage of places for gaining admission to all the levels (undergraduate Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and PhD), recommendations were made to the universities
not applying that percentage to include in their internal rules regulating admission procedures to Master’s degree and PhD courses in academic year 2017-2018 and beyond, the setting aside of at least 5% of the places offered, for them to be awarded to students affected by disability. In all the replies received, the universities accepted the recommendations.
Members of the armed forces and other public servants
After receiving a large number of complaints from servicemen and women, the Office has opened an inquiry at the Ministry of Defence into the situation that rank and file soldiers and sailors are in, who have to leave the armed forces at the age of 45.
The Office of the Ombudsman also opened an own-initiative inquiry as a result of a certain increase in assaults on public servants such as health and teaching personnel, to find out what protection systems are applied by the Government authorities.
Activity of the National Preventive Mechanism for preventing torture (NPM) In 2016, 101 visits were made to detention centres such as police stations, detention centres for foreign nationals (centros de internamiento de extranjeros, CIE), centres for juvenile offenders, penitentiary centres and operations centres for repatriating foreigners.
In all the visits, the living conditions of the interns were checked and as a result of the inspections carried out, 12 recommendations, 336 suggestions and 4 reminders of legal duties were made. 131 own-initiative inquiries were launched, as well.
The Office of the Ombudsman will soon be presenting the annual report of the NMP, which contains detailed information about the visits and recommendations made.
Case studies
In 2016, the following case studies were published and presented:
“Asylum in Spain. International protection and the resources of the reception system”
analyses the situation of the Spanish asylum system and makes 26 recommendations for improving the hosting and integration of people seeking refuge in Spain.
“The rights of the victims of ETA. Their situation today”, which makes 17 recommendations to the Government and to the Attorney General’s Office for improving the defence of the rights of the 864 fatal victims of and more than 2,500 people injured by ETA terrorism.
