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SIRPA RAUTIO (Director of Human Rights Center, Finland)
Thank you also from my part for the organizers for extending the
invitation to me, I am not an ombudsman but I work in connection with
an ombudsman office. The ombudsman Petri Jääskeläinen could not
come due to another event happening with Nordic-Baltic ombudsman
at the same time. But he sends his best greetings and I was of course
very happy to have the opportunity to come and attend an ombuds
meeting which I normally do not do very often.

The previous speaker, the Croatian ombudswoman described a very
similar evolution of an ombudsman that has happened in Finland
although our solution how we have structured the work is slightly
different. But in fact you made my job much easier because I think I
can go a little bit faster with some of the things which I had planned
to talk about otherwise there would be repetition for example about
the Paris Principles but very similar thoughts, very similar challenges
but slightly different structure for the solution. So, we have the Finnish
model now which is being replicated now in other Nordic countries.
Norway is restructuring its ombuds and national human rights
institution similarly with many more resources I may add in Sweden
there is similar thinking I also heard from the previous panelist from
the Slovenian deputy ombudsman that there were similar thoughts.
So, in some ways the model is being replicated and I think it is because 3 rd INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTIONS
there are so many good ombuds offices but many have realized the
need to do more especially on the side of promotion. So, I would not
go into the Paris Principles because you very well explained what the
Paris Principles require I just add my last bullet which is that there is not
one model for national human rights institutions. They need to feed
the local context and therefore different models and configurations
exist and are accepted.

This is a very simple description of the Finnish national human rights
institution we were also happy to receive the A status last December
and with not too many recommendations so we were quite happy of
course they were asking for more resources especially for new tasks
but fundamentally there were no requests to do anything that would
be very difficult for us to do in five years time when we have to apply for
the reaccreditation. So the human rights center and the pluralistic body
are built on the parliamentary ombudsman which is the government

16 - 17 September 2015, ANKARA | 203