The DEMOS Project, integrated in the INTERREG 2014-2020 programme and financed by the European Regional Development Fund FEDER, aims to foster activities designed to increase the levels of development and socio-economic integration of the outermost regions of Portugal and Spain, composed of the archipelagos of Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands. Within the scope of the Ombudsman’s participation in…
The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, is received, in hearing, on 28 September, at 15h00, by the Commission of Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees for the presentation and discussion of the Annual Report of Activities for the year 2020, including the Report of the National Preventive Mechanism. Learn more here. To listen to the hearing click here.
The Ombudsman participated, through her Cabinet Adviser Patrícia Fragoso Martins, in the webinar promoted by the European Network of Ombudsmen dedicated to “Institutional care, the use of EU funds and lessons from the pandemic”. The event took place on 15 September and was organized following the enquiry promoted by the European Ombudsman on the use of European funds and the…
The Ombudsman submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of articles 10, no. 2, 13, no. 4 and 14, no. 1 of Law no. 26/2020 of 21 July. Transposing a European directive, the aforementioned law establishes the obligation to communicate to the Tax and Customs Authority certain internal or cross-border mechanisms with tax relevance.The request addressed…
The Ombudsman has been faced with a growing number of complaints in relation to significant delays in attribution of pre-natal family allowance, as well as in the initial attribution or reassessment of the income bracket of the family allowance for children and young people. In 2020 183 complaints on these issues were received and this year, by the end of…
The Ombudsman welcomes the clarification provided by Decree-Law no. 59/2021, of 14 July, which, in accordance with the position assumed and conveyed by this State body to the Government, determines that telephone lines made available by suppliers of goods and service providers, specifically essential public services, should be free of charge or, alternatively, correspond to a geographic or mobile numbering…
The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, attended the General Assembly, the International Board meeting and then the Annual Conference of the IOI – International Ombudsman Institute, which took place between 25 and 27 May in Dublin (remotely). The General Assembly was marked by the inauguration of the new members of the governing bodies of this international organisation, including the Ombudsman of…
The Ombudspersons of Portugal and Cape Verde, Maria Lúcia Amaral and José Carlos Delgado, signed a Cooperation Protocol to strengthen the conditions for sharing knowledge, good practices and exchanging experiences, as well as facilitating citizens’ access to their institutions. The Protocol foresees, among others, the development of joint actions of capacity building and exchange, namely of specialized technicians, so that…
In 2020, activity indicators were once again the highest in the history of the Ombudsman, an independent State body created in 1975 to defend people who feel aggrieved by unfair or illegal acts or omissions of the administration or other public powers or who see their fundamental rights violated. The Ombudsman dealt with a record 11,557 new cases, as a…
In the scope of an initiative of the Ibero-American Federation of Ombudsman (FIO) on the exceptional measures decreed by its Member-States in the scope of the combat and of the mitigation of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ombudsman Office drafted a chapter on the State of Emergency in Portugal. To read the publication [in Spanish and in Portuguese…