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QUESTIONS and ANSWERS – SESSION III

CHAIR: Thank you very much. I want to thank all the panelist for having
being so very careful with their time which allows us to have plenty of time
for discussion.

Let me just again offer a few remarks on the presentation by Prof. Gülan
with an idea of facilitating the discussion. Obviously this last panel
and certainly this last paper is touching virtually all aspects of what an
ombudsman does because clearly the topic of the relationship between
ombudsman and administration really is what an ombudsman is all
about, what ombudsman do. And Mr. Gülan touched upon central aspects
of this relationship as they pertain to the Turkish experience. The important
thing that I would like the stress in terms of again general relations with
ombudsman and administration is a great challenge for ombudsman
and you alluded to that is how to be able to combine two separate and
distinct aspects of the rule of law. Clearly there can be no ombudsman
who can operate satisfactorily without respecting the law. The law is the
foundation upon which an ombudsman has to operate. But of course such
as the nature of the ombudsman institution what one is expected to be
beyond the law and to apply principles of the administration which are 3 rd INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTIONS
in fact what some people often call “soft law” I would like to avoid that
because it has implications but I am not entirely happy, but the issue is
principles of good administration and body if you please the distinction
between law in one hand and fairness in the other. And this fairness that
ultimately is the essence of what the ombudsman does. He is applying the
law but also introducing the dimension of fairness a difficult word that is
not easy to translate in many languages but we have to bear in mind and
it is precisely the combination of these two elements which defines in my
mind the degree of success of legitimation and ultimately of the authority
of the ombudsman institution in any given legal jurisdiction.
Prof. Gülan made a reference in his paper about the importance of
compliance rates and how do we valuate an ombudsman’s effectiveness.
Obviously the compliance of the administration to his report is critical
to that but if a topic of our panel speaks of the scope and follow up to
recommendations and I would suggest to you that one way of approaching

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