Coordinating Ombudsmen and the Judiciary

Although the protection of individuals' interests against administrative actions is still primarily the domain of the judiciary, most legal systems nowadays also assign this task to ombudsmen. This can potentially lead to tension between the two institutions and can affect their relations, and therefore needs coordination.

This book investigates whether relations between the judiciary and ombudsmen exist at all, how their respective tasks and competences influence one another and how they are coordinated. It contains a comprehensive and comparative study on the coordination of the relations between ombudsmen and the judiciary in three considerably different legal systems, namely the Netherlands, England and the European Union.

The author identifies three levels of possible coordination: institutional coordination, case coordination and normative coordination. He explores and compares the statutory rules, the case law of the judiciary and ombudsprudence. In addition, he draws from experiences shared through interviews with ombudsmen, judges and employees of ombudsman offices. In doing so, he demonstrates that several improvements to the ombudsmen-judiciary relations are required.