Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

šMr. Miloš Janković, Acting Ombudsman, together with his colleagues Gordana Stevanović, Robert Sepi, Deputy Ombudsman Vladana Jović, and the Secretary General Olja Jovičić, submitted the Regular Annual Report of the Ombudsman for 2016 to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

As in the previous period, the state of civil rights in Serbia was marked by an unfavourable economic situation, and lack of legal security. The announced and implemented activities performed by the authorities still have not led to the desired results. The report noted that the largest number of citizens addressed the Ombudsman regarding violations of social and economic rights. Furthermore, one-third of all complaints referred to the so-called bad management, especially non-compliance with deadlines by the administration, negligent attitude and obvious misapplication of the law.

The Ombudsman emphasises that these circumstances threaten all citizens, especially vulnerable groups such as children, persons with disabilities, persons deprived of liberty in psychiatric hospitals and residential social protection institutions, women, LGBTI community, national minorities especially the Roma community. Highly vulnerable are young people, the elderly, victims of domestic violence, people affected by serious diseases, internally displaced, refugees and other migrants. Unfortunately, among them are also the organisations and individuals advocating human rights and all those who express critical views of the Government.

During 2016, the office of the Ombudsman was contacted by around 20 thousand people, which is one-third more than average from the previous year. Citizens submitted more than 6,000 complaints to the Ombudsman who by applying control procedures and performing the duties of the National Preventive Mechanism, submitted the total of 1,340 recommendations the competent authorities. A significant fact is that the percentage of acting upon the recommendations is almost 90%, which represents an increase compared to the previous year, and it is within the limits of the average of acting upon the recommendations for the period 2007-2015.

Source: www.ombudsman.rs