other issues within the catalog of rights, freedoms and guarantees, namely access to information, data protection and freedom of access and exercise of profession, are addressed. In general terms, the procedures initiated in 2016 - including five procedures opened at the Ombudsman’s own initiative (40) – maintained the same figures registered in 2015. The most significant qualitative changes occurred in education issues (raising about 10%) and, in the opposite direction, health issues (however remaining predominant since 2013), nationality and foreigner’s law. During this year, 1000 procedures were concluded, distributed as follows: a) In 425 cases, with total or partial satisfaction of the complainant’s claim; b) In 340 cases, no ground was found to agree with the claim; c) In 152 cases, the complainant was referred to the appropriate mean for the defense of the rights at stake, or the clarifications necessary for a correct understanding of the situation were provided; d) In 51 cases, in the impossibility of undertaking other actions, with a remark to the Administration, calling for a change in procedures; e) In 26 cases the complainant withdrew the petition; (41) f ) In 6 cases, albeit the Ombudsman recognized totally or partially the complaint as reasonable, no recognition of this fact and further restitution was achieved by the Administration. Valuations of constitutionality Following the trend noted on the previous year, a further decline was felt in the number of open complaint procedures whereby citizens directly requested the Ombudsman to request the Constitutional Court to declare the unconstitutionality of a certain norm (29 in 2016 with 44 in 2015), thus maintaining the same level registered in 2008, after five years of steep increase and another one of stabilization. In many cases, the grounds used were the principle of equality and organic and formal vices, in this case very much associated with the enactment of new taxes. (40)  These self-initiated procedures focused on: i) assessing the constitutionality of some of the rules of the Lisbon Urban Planning Regulation, namely in relation to the absence of additional criteria to be observed if a project is declared of exceptional importance for the city and, consequently, depart from the construction criteria defined; ii) alleged constraints registered in some hospitals in the dispensing of medicines (antiretroviral) for a minimum period of 90 days; iii) verification of third party access to data of Portuguese emigrants enrolled in the network of national consular posts; iv) analysis of the food situation in prisons; v) assessing the access by visitors to prisoners who are in a high secure facility. (41)  This comparatively high figure is mainly due to the reception, in 2015, of several complaints, incompletely substantiated, concerning the procedures for granting residence permits for investment activity, without no reply to subsequent requests for further information. 60 |