Public Law - Ombudsman revision notes (semester 2)
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Course
Public Law (LAW106)
Institution
The University Of Liverpool (UoL)
Documents containing all the relevant information about the topic, condensed into colour coded tables to enable easier memorisation and order. I achieved a first class in public law using these notes.
WHAT IS AN A person appointed to hear and investigate complaints
OMBUDSMAN??? and give those complaints a dedicated institutional
outlook
Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967
(1) For the purpose of conducting investigations in
accordance with the following provisions of this
Act there shall be appointed a Commissioner, to be
known as the Parliamentary Commissioner for
Administration
BACKGROUND OF THE Judicial review was inaccessible and narrow and political
OMBUDSMAN mechanisms were limited too
The motivation for the creation of the ombudsman was
the ‘continuous flow of relatively minor complaints, not
sufficient in themselves to attract public interest but
nevertheless of great importance to individuals’ (JUSTICE
para 76)
Created in response to demand for redress as
there was a ‘gap’ that the government couldn’t fill
Doesn’t fully capture reality as the issue can be
extremely serious but still fit into this ‘gap’
ACCESS TO THE COST – free!!!
OMBUDSMAN Access to administrative justice is free compared
to legal justice being extremely expensive
SOCIAL FACTORS: AWARENESS AND WILLINGNESS
The Ombudsman in 2012 said that people felt making was
a complaint was ‘difficult or felt it didn’t make a
difference’
This could be reasons such as:
Difficult to find out where/how as you cannot
invoke the ombudsman directly through a website
or anything
Fear of worse service – may make people resent
you and get a worse service
Doubts about effectiveness/authenticity – very
often to assume that complaints procedures don’t
do anything, and they are just there so people can
complain so it looks like the state are doing
something about redress
, Non-legal redress: the ombudsman
THE ’MP FILTER’
PCA 1967 section 5 explains how the ombudsman sits
behind the MP filter which is the idea that if you want to
invoke the ombudsman you can just directly ask them,
you have ask/invoke an MP first
The law says that ‘any MP’ will do however
conventions say that you have to use your own
constituency MP
The political background reason for the MP filter is that
the ombudsman is complementary to parliamentary
accountability procedures
Organised as an agent of parliament rather than a
stand-alone body so parliament remains at the
centre
This was meant to be a temporary transitional
agreement for 5 years and then after this the
ombudsman would be able to be directly invoked
but Gordon said that the MP filter (even though it
is highly contested and disliked) became
‘imbedded within the system’
THE JURISTICION OF THE Schedule 2 contains the list of bodies that the
OMBUDSMAN ombudsman can investigate which is similar to the judicial
review concept of amenability
Schedule 3 contains the list of excluded matters which is
only a small exclusions and the standard complaints will
normally not include these exclusions
Section 5 of the PCA gives the statutory terms which
define the power of the ombudsman –
MALADMINISTRATION AND INJUSTICE
MALADMINISTRATION Crossman attempted to define maladministration as ‘bias,
neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, inaptitude,
perversity, turpitude, arbitrariness and so on.’
The ombudsman established a list of what should be done
correctly and if these are not done then there is
maladministration:
Getting it right
Being customer focused
Being open and accountable
Acting fairly and proportionately
Putting things right
Seeking continuous improvement
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