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.
Chapter 1. General introduction (p. 1)
Chapter 2. Research design (p. 11)
Chapter 1. The National Ombudsman (p. 25)
Chapter 2. System of the Dutch courts (p. 39)
Chapter 3. Institutional coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in the Netherlands (p. 47)
Chapter 4. Case coordination of ombudsmen – judiciary relations in the Netherlands? (p. 65)
Chapter 5. Normative coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in the Netherlands? (p. 93)
Chapter 1. The Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Local Government (p. 119)
Chapter 2. Judicial authorities in England (p. 143)
Chapter 3. Institutional coordination of ombudsman–judiciary relations in England? (p. 153)
Chapter 4. Case coordination of ombudsmen-judiciary relations in England? (p. 181)
Chapter 5. Normative coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in England (p. 203)
Chapter 1. The European Ombudsman (p. 231)
Chapter 2. The Court of Justice of the European Union (p. 245)
Chapter 3. Institutional coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in the EU (p. 253)
Chapter 4. Case coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in the EU? (p. 271)
Chapter 5. Normative coordination of ombudsman-judiciary relations in the EU (p. 297)
Chapter 1. Theories and ombudsman-judiciary relations (p. 325)
Chapter 2. Findings, evaluations and amendments (p. 331)
Samenvatting (Dutch summary) (p. 357)
Bibliography (p. 371)
Cases (p. 385)
Annex 1 - Interview questions (p. 391)
Annex 2 - Interviewed persons (p. 395)
Annex 3 - Lists of normative standards of the researched ombudsmen (p. 397)
Curriculum vitae (p. 407)
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The ‘Ius Commune Europaeum’ series focuses on the common foundations of the legal systems of the Member States of the European Union. It includes horizontal comparative legal studies as well as studies on the effect of EU law, treaties and international regulation within the national legal systems. All substantive fields of law are covered.
The series is published under the auspices of METRO, the Institute for Transnational Legal Research at the Maastricht University.
Guidelines for the submission of a manuscript or proposal can be found here.
Editorial Board
Prof. Dr. J. Smits (chair - Tilburg University, the Netherlands)
Prof. Dr. M. Faure (Maastricht University and Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Prof. Dr. E. Vos (Maastricht University, the Netherlands).
