Coordinating ombudsmen and the judiciary. A comparativce view on the relations between ombudsmen and the judiciary in the Netherlands, England and the European Union

The ombudsman institution is one of the most rapidly developing institutions in modern democratic states. In general, ombudsmen can be characterised as impartial investigators of the conduct of administration. They often act as dispute resolution mechanisms between the state and individuals and sometimes also act as solvers of problems of individuals connected with the state power. In order to assess the quality of administrative conduct they use certain normative standards against which they assess this conduct. However, ombudsmen are not the only state institutions dealing with these issues. The problems of individuals discontent with the work of administration are primarily in the hands of the judiciary. The judiciary, notably administrative courts, is the most important dispute resolution mechanism in modern states which also assess the administrative conduct against certain normative standards. Ombudsmen and the judiciary are often seen as institutions having relatively similar competences in a relatively similar area. Ombudsmen and the judiciary work in similar conditions. They are approached by individuals and they provide their opinion about the justice. This potential similarity raises questions on a possible coordination of their relations. They are the institutions of the same state. But are there any checks and balances in their approaches? They both should also provide the dispute resolution between individuals and the state. But do their decisions lead to the same or similar results? How do ombudsmen approach the judgments of the courts and how do the courts approach the reports of ombudsmen? And where is the individual? Last but not least, normative standards applied by these institutions represent another interesting matter. The normative standards of ombudsmen and the judiciary are not necessarily similar. They should not be the same, as the concepts of control of ombudsmen and the judiciary are only rarely identical. Nonetheless, these normative standards must also have some similarities as these institutions exist in the same legal environments where they provide individuals with their protection. The research answers the abovementioned questions in a comparative manner. It deals with these questions in the Netherlands, England and the European Union. In these legal systems the research provides analyses of the coordination between ombudsmen and the judiciary. The research does that on the level of institutional coordination, on the level of case coordination and on the level of normative coordination.