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The NPM – National Preventive Mechanism carried out joint visits to places of detention with its UK counterpart in November. The British NPM participated in the visits to the Detention Space at Lisbon Airport and to the Torres Novas prison establishment, and the Portuguese NPM team took part in the inspection of Garth prison, in Lancashire. The joint visits stem…
To mark International Day of the Person with Disability, the Ombudsman presented a brief assessment of the activity developed by the telephone line especially dedicated to supporting these fellow citizens. Throughout 2022, in the period between 1st January and 30th November, the Disabled Citizens’ Line received 502 calls, a number that exceeds the total received in the previous year. Evolution…
The Ombudsman submitted a request to the Constitutional Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with general binding force, of rules contained in Law 45/2012, of 29 August, which approves the legal regime for access to and exercise of the profession of driving examiner and the recognition of training bodies. The provisions in question are article 4(b) of the law, according…
The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, was received in audience by the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, on July 21, at 11:00 am, following the delivery of the Annual Activity Report and the Report of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture regarding 2021. Learn more here.
The Ombudsman’s Office joined the launch of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) project ‘Rights without Borders: Cooperation to Strengthen Human Rights in Detention Centres for Migration Purposes in Portugal’. The initiative, which took place in Lisbon on 25 September 2024, is part of the mission to contribute to the promotion and defence of the human rights of foreign people…
On World Children’s Day, the Ombudsman was represented at the meeting on alternatives to the administrative detention of migrant children in Portugal, organised in Lisbon by IOM – International Organisation for Migration (the United Nations Migration Agency), by the Coordinator of the National Preventive Mechanism, Miguel Feldmann, who presented a communication entitled “The National Preventive Mechanism and the detention of…
The Ombudsman’s Office, as a member of the Association of Mediterranean Ombudsmen (AOM), took part in the association’s Extraordinary General Assembly held in Cyprus on 25 September. During the meeting, the Cyprus Commissioner for Administration and Protection of Human Rights was elected Vice-President of the AOM. The following day, the Ombudsman’s Office also took part in the Conference on ‘The…
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,…
The Ombudsman addressed an alert to the competent authorities after receiving various complaints from foreign citizens reporting difficulties encountered with services provided by the Institute of Social Security (ISS, IP) that are not taking into account the exceptional rules in force in relation to the regularity of their stay in national territory, thereby blocking access to various social benefits. At…
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,…