Comments on the draft strategy for the law on the defender of children

In the Defender’s opinion, the draft strategy for the law suffers from a fundamental shortcoming, since the individual categories of children’s ombudspersons in Europe have not been studied sufficiently for making a political decision and choosing one of the available models. The Defender therefore proposed that the draft strategy be supplemented with a detailed analysis of the competences of children’s ombudspersons in European countries so that the Final Report evaluating the impact of regulation (Regulatory Impact Analysis, RIA) includes all available solutions. Another general comment by the Defender was the absence of an analysis of the financial costs of the individual variants. The Defender does not consider that it would be expedient for the children's ombudsman to have the same powers as the Public Defender of Rights, particularly to perform inquiries into individual complaints. On the contrary, it seems more meaningful for the defender of children’s rights to have the powers that are contained in the so-called Paris criteria. Thus, the children’s ombudsman should play a monitoring and initiating role and act as an advisory institution rather than a body performing individual inquiries.

The Defender is not keen to promote himself for the role of a specialised children’s ombudsman. He considers his activities in this area so far to be sufficient, all the more so as he is concerned with the protection of children’s rights not only in the area of the social and legal protection of children, but also within the inquiries into complaints about delays in court proceedings. The Defender also takes a number of steps within his detention agenda (including special visits to facilities where institutional and protective education is exercised and ongoing visits to facilities for persons with disabilities).