ABSTRACT
The movement towards establishing a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (or ombudsman) began in 1959. In that year, the British section of the International Commission of Jurists, JUSTICE, established an inquiry into grievances against the administration. The resultant report14 advocated setting up an additional avenue for the redress of grievances, the office being modelled on the same lines as those of the ombudsmen in Scandinavian jurisdictions. As the report stated, there appeared to be:
The existing machinery was found wanting: parliamentary Question Time was inadequate to deal with the volume of problems arising; if a complaint was made directly to the government department, the department investigated the complaint; if a Member of Parliament attempted to investigate, he could not gain access to all departmental documentation. Accordingly, the report advocated establishing a permanent office, independent of the executive and accountable only to parliament, removable from office only after a successful address had been moved to both Houses of Parliament. The report recommended that a select committee should be established to consider the Commissioner’s reports and to give parliamentary authority to the work of the Commissioner. The report also recommended that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration’s office should be one which supplemented, rather than undermined, existing procedures for complaint. Complaints, at least initially, concerning maladministration16 should be routed through Members of Parliament, rather than directly addressed to the Parliamentary Commissioner. This would preserve to Members of Parliament the opportunity to resolve a matter of complaint but, failing their ability to do so, confer the right to refer the matter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for investigation and report.
