I find that many complainants writing to the Ombudsman, and those to whom I have spoken believe that they are frequently alone and even treated as second-class citizens when facing the state with its compartmentalised, opaque and frequently autocratic apparatus, which is not always friendly to individuals, and often an end in itself functioning according to the principle of an insensitive computer; when making an error, it is unable to apologise, reimburse the damage or eliminate irregularities. In many fields, the management of the state and institutions is poor. In particular, it is slow, inefficient and does not always work for the best interests of people, particularly those on the social margins who are poor, helpless, deprived of dignity and disappointed. These people go from door to door seeking answers and solutions. Unfortunately, they are frequently confronted with closed doors. I often stress that a full person cannot empathise with a hungry one, nor does a healthy person believe a sick one, or a rich person a poor one. A person may be self-sufficient until something or someone jerks the rug out from under their feet and they themselves are pushed among the people on the social margin. People are also helpless if they lack sufficient legal aid in legal procedures, but free legal assistance is what they most frequently need. Has our ‘navigating’ bridge sufficient ‘compass’? Vlasta Nussdorfer, Human Rights Ombudsman Dear Reader, this is the 21st annual report on the work of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia. All findings, opinions and recommendations in this report are based on the extensive work I performed as the fourth Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia together with my colleagues: four Deputies, the Secretary General, the Director of the Expert Service, the Ombudsman’s advisers and other expert and technical staff. As an establishment, the Human Rights Ombudsman is on the bridge, overseeing the observance of rights, for which it was authorised with the Constitution and the Human Rights Ombudsman Act. The tasks and authorisations were allocated to the Ombudsman in additional 25 acts and rules. I believe that in 21 years, which marks the age of majority in some countries, we have justified our operations with direct or indirect assistance to thousands of complainants who claimed violations of their human rights. The Ombudsman as overseer of the rule of law and a social state By analysing the 3,418 complaints discussed in 2015, of which 3,008 were completed, we established that in 475 cases the complaints were justified. State and local authorities and holders of public authorisations functioned unlawfully, managed poorly or violated human rights and fundamental freedoms in another way. It is difficult to present all the discussed cases in which violations were established, and we thus in addition to general findings publish only the most important or representative ones which explicitly feature individual violations of human rights and also several systemic forms of violation. All other forms of communications must be added to the above number of complaints discussed, which serve as the source of determining the satisfaction of Slovenian citizens with the functioning of institutions. We received as many as 9,611 calls to the toll-free telephone number 080 15 30, and held twelve external sessions, at which we conducted 217 personal interviews with complainants. I received 68 persons for a personal interview at the head office of the institution 12 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA FOR 2015 We urgently require a people-friendly ‘navigating bridge’ from which it will be possible to scrutinise minutely with a good ‘compass’ and notice movement in the wrong direction and change the course promptly and decisively. It seems that the operators have not yet agreed on the direction of social development, and frequently do not know what to do when inhumane situations develop. They claim that the laws are good, and only have to be respected. I find that by merely appealing to respect for legislation, moral standing, ethical conduct and the humanitarian resolution of problems in all fields of life, we will not succeed in reducing the number of entirely wrongful acts which visibly affect the dignity of people and eat away at the fabric of society. These include new forms of slavery, where employers practically ‘own’ workers who have no rights and refuse to pay them wages for their work. The workers do not receive minimum social and health protection or even suitable legal assistance. People with no morals and compassion apparently do not fear supervisory mechanisms or legal sanctions. To maintain the attained level of human rights protection I am concerned that the level of human rights already obtained has declined or is frequently too easily limited almost overnight. Many new limitations on human rights are enforced without public notification, and broader jurisdictions are allocated to certain authorities, even with the legitimate support of the legislators. A time of lurking, utterly new and sometimes also unfounded fear does not favour the consistent observance of fundamental human rights and freedoms already ensured in the Constitution and international treaties. Respect for them is unfortunately not self-evident, but demands constant efforts by all, both the governmental and non-governmental sectors, particularly to maintain their present level, the realisation of known and codified rights, the modification of poor practices into good ones and finally adding to the range of human rights in the Slovenian Constitution and perhaps also in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, e.g. the right to water. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA FOR 2015 13 1 INTRODUCTION 1 INTRODUCTION in 2015, and a total of 258 persons in my three-year term. The fact that we received as many as 11,307 incoming documents in 2015 testifies to the complexity of conducting business with various publics. We received 2,785 new complaints and discussed 3,418 complaints together with those from previous years, of which we discussed 19 complaints at our own initiative, for which we obtained the consent of the complainants. Some 47 complaints were addressed as wider issues important for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and legal certainty of citizens of the Republic of Slovenia relating to the relevance of the topics or media exposure of certain individual cases or issues affecting a larger number of people. As part of the Advocate – A Child’s Voice project, 41 children were appointed representatives. We organised or attended over 500 events. The work performed was extensive and is described in detail according to substantive sets, and also in the third chapter of the report and the statistical data presentation.