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and vulnerable groups. It has to be able to freely choose topics and
priorities for example when it comes to the research projects or
specific thematic priorities at a time.

And adequate resources of course that goes without saying even
though sometimes that is the most difficult requirement to fulfil
as it really, I am sure you can sympathize with that, takes difficult
negotiations with different structures in the government and the
parliament in order to be granted adequate budget.

The responsibilities of the NHRI are also listed and to start with, the
NHRI should monitor any situation of violation of human rights which
it decides to take up. So it does go beyond again maladministration
cases and the breeches of rights of citizens that complain to us because
they feel they have been violated before public authorities.
There is also I would say a huge workload that comes in relations with
international organizations and the international work that we have
to do. It is the encouraging harmonization of national legislation with
international standards it also encouraging ratification of international
documents. That means submitting independent reports to the human
rights treaty bodies and other mechanisms just last year we have
submitted the UPR the independent report to the Convention against
Torture and the independent report to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. So, that is a quite a work load that we have
to take to be able to fulfil this mandate. Of course cooperating with
International Human Rights Organizations also goes without saying.
One of the responsibilities is also is to educate and inform in the field
of human rights and that is something also different a little bit from
the traditional ombudsman function because at least my office before
being granted the NHRIs status did not work in this regard. And of
course, in order to be successful it is crucial to have financial autonomy.
An institution with no control over its finances cannot really fulfil its
functions properly and cannot be independent and independence
really is the crucial in fulfilling all the tasks. So, as the NHRIs are funded
by the state they really have to make sure that they also act absolutely
independently from it.
Speaking more specifically about the case of Croatia, the institution
of ombudsman was established in 1992 in accordance with the

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