Difficulties related to the service provided by public services have long been the subject of the Ombudsman’s attention. However, the pandemic of 2020 and 2021 and the need to confine the population have profoundly changed existing practices, and, after the health emergency, many doubts and complaints have arisen about how the channels between public services and citizens are being resumed.…
On 26 January, the Ombudsman’s Office, represented by the Deputy Ombudsman, Estrela Chaby, signed a collaboration protocol with the National Centre for Legal Innovation (CNIJ), located in Bragança. The CNIJ embodies a long-standing collaboration between the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon and Bragança City Council, under the slogan of a “University without walls”, with summer courses, conferences…
Special noise licences are administrative permits – to be issued by local authorities (municipality or parish, depending on the case) – that allow temporary noisy activities to take place, under certain conditions, near sensitive locations (such as residential buildings, on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and on working days between 8pm and 8am, or near hospitals or similar establishments). As…
Vulnerable families who are part of the convergent social protection scheme are still not receiving the extraordinary support to mitigate the effects of inflation created by Decree-Law 21-A/2023 of 28 March, and the Ombudsman recently renewed her call to the Secretary of State for Public Administration in July for the problem to be resolved. The law establishes that, among others,…
On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, the Ombudsman, in her triple capacity as guarantor of citizens’ fundamental rights before the public authorities, National Human Rights Institution and National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture and Ill-Treatment, welcomes and reaffirms the fundamental values enshrined therein,…
On the eve of its half-century anniversary, on 15 November the Ombudsman has moved its headquarters from Rua do Pau de Bandeira, in the residential neighbourhood of Lapa, to Palácio Vilalva, located between Rua Marquês de Fronteira and Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira, in one of Lisbon’s central hubs. This fulfils a long-standing ambition to place the state institution…
The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, received the Ukrainian Ambassador to Portugal, Maryna Mykhailenko, on 28 November, at the first hearing held in the Ombudsman’s new premises.
The Ombudsman has submitted a request to the Constitutional Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with general binding force, of rules in force in the Autonomous Region of Madeira that limit the activity of individual passenger transport in uncharacterised vehicles, known by the acronym TVDE. At present, TVDE activity in the Autonomous Region of Madeira is subject to a numerus…
The Ombudsman has submitted a request to the Constitutional Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with general binding force, of rules contained in Law no. 13/2023, of 3 April, which amended the Labour Code and related legislation “within the scope of the decent work agenda”. The rules in question are those contained in Article 10(3) of the Labour Code, which…
The Ombudsman’s Office welcomes the decision by EMEL – Empresa Municipal de Mobilidade e Estacionamento de Lisboa, E.M.S.A., to reverse the imposition of a fine for non-payment of a parking fee after it was proven that the nearest parking meter was out of order. This review followed the intervention of the Ombudsman’s Office, which found that the metadata of the…