The Ombudsman and the Protection of Human Rights in Europe : Case Study of Italian Civic Defender

The paper is centered on the Ombudsman’s role in the defense of individual human rights. The institution of the Ombudsman is based on the idea that citizens should be entitled to complain against specific acts and behaviors of their rulers and that their complaints should be investigated by an independent body. In Europe, the establishment of a specific office to investigate citizen complaints against public bureaucracy is relatively recent, having started in Sweden in the early 19th century but can be considered as a fundamental European institution. The general purpose of the author is to explain how the Ombudsman, in a new global era, take part in the defense of human rights. Thanks to a socio-legal method of analysis, we reflect upon the social function of the Ombudsman in Europe and its legal structure. In fact, Ombudsmen came to be seen as useful in helping to meet the problem of expanding bureaucracy in the modern welfare state and to improve human rights. In particular, the increase in the powers of discretion given to European governments led to a need of protection against administrative arbitrariness. The Italian case study demonstrates the activity of the Ombudsman—and especially of a ―Human Rights Ombudsman‖—is dysfunctional for authoritarian governments and, also, gives a paradigmatic example of the regressive processes that, even in Western Democracies, and affect the attempts at the complete democratization of political institutions.