OMBUDSPERSON TEREZIJA STOISITS Within the area of responsibility of Ombudsperson Terezija Stoisits there were 1,713 new cases in the reporting period. Of these cases, 1,089 concerned federal administration authorities and 624 regional and local authorities (in particular state police laws and regional and local taxes and levies). 1,713 new Of the 474 cases in the area of federal government administration, most of the complaints concerned the Federal Ministry of the Interior and here, in particular, the implementation of alien and asylum law. Regarding complaints on asylum law, it must be noted that they did not all concern the Federal Ministry of the Interior. A third of the complaints concerned the Asylum Court, respectively, the Independent Federal Asylum Board. Years of policy failures have created a considerable backlog of pending appeals proceedings. In 2008, this entire backlog, together with all the associated problems, was shifted to the newly created Asylum Court. Therefore, the most frequent complaint remained the long duration of the proceedings. But there were also complaints about decisions pronounced by the Asylum Court. However, as opposed to the Independent Federal Asylum Board, the AOB has no authority here to undertake any investigations. Ministry of the The presented cases and legislative recommendations in the area of granting citizenship have to be pointed out emphatically. It is primarily the lack of any discretionary latitude in evaluations of the requirement of a proven means of making a living that results – in structural terms – in hardship cases. They result directly from the Austrian Citizenship Act. The observations of the AOB make it clear that the substantial Austria-wide decline in naturalisations by 22.2% in 2009 compared to 2008 does not just represent a statistical figure but show that these are very concrete human destinies. Citizenship The restrictive implementation practice in alien law is demonstrated very clearly in the example of the growing number of complaints because of refusals of visitors’ visas. In the meantime the granting of a visitor’s visa seems to be just as difficult as obtaining a residence permit. The increase in the number of complaints in this area seems even more consequential because the visa applicants are always abroad. Therefore their knowledge concerning the existing possibilities for lodging complaints or judicial remedies in Austria can be regarded as rather slight. Furthermore a negative decision regar- Visa regulations cases Interior leads in number of complaints question 19