What do three of the Ombudsman candidates announce for
Topics such as domestic violence, protection of the rights of children and people with disabilities, as well as providing better dialogue between citizens and institutions have taken a large part of the hearing of some of the candidates for the national ombudsman. It was held today at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at Sofia University.
One year without the choice of ombudsman
The institution has been functioning for a year without heading its deputy, after the then National Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva left her post in April 2024 and was sworn in as a Bulgarian judge in the European Court of Human Rights.
One Naum: Maya Manolova does not want to be a prime minister, but he hopes to have her qualities
A little earlier, at the end of March 2024, her deputy Elena Cherneva-Markova resigned with the argument that the position was for non-politicized persons and incompatible with that of Prime Minister. This happened after the constitutional changes with which the Ombudsman and his deputy became part of the public positions that the president could appoint as a prime minister.
What do the three candidates offer
The « Public Observer » initiative to monitor the recommendations made to the Ombudsman institutions. To systematically check their management and to actively participate in this process civil organizations. This was presented as a future project raised by two GERB MPs Velislava Delcheva During the event.
Delcheva has more than 20 years of experience as a human rights activist and stated that it is necessary to work to raise the legal culture of citizens. One of her ideas is to hold public discussions in small settlements, where experts and non -governmental organizations will discuss the problems of the population. She focused on the more active work in these places and said that in about 240 municipalities in the country there is no active ombudsman.
There has been no strategy for children in the country for many years.
According to her, more should be worked on with regard to children at risk, to modernize the law on child justice and to develop the program for prevention and protection in cases of domestic violence, which is not currently sufficient.
In turn Maya Manolova Introduced as a priority to bring the work of the institutions on the ground where there are the biggest problems. She runs for a second term as an Ombudsman after leaving the post in 2019 early.
Manolova focused on the waterlessness and the lack of drinking water in some parts of the country. She has announced that she will be behind the rights of more vulnerable groups of people – children at risk, refugees and migrants, disabled and special educational needs and behind minority groups that are stigmatized in society. Its proposals also include the protection of the rights of citizens from monopolists and the development of anti -corruption practices.
Children’s rights also affect the right to quality education.
Dimitar Margaritov He expressed his readiness to protect consumer rights and stated that they were quite harmed in the more sensitive sectors. He sees as a problem and raising the prices of essentials.
« No reform in the legislation is needed, it is sufficient to optimize the activity of the control bodies. I have received a lot of signals for vulnerable groups – that there are accumulated problems with access to education and normal infrastructure, » he said during the discussion and assured that he would work to solve these problems.
What do the numbers show for 2024
| Over the past year, the complaints received were more than 12,500. The most are citizens’ alerts and complaints for violated consumer rights – a total of 33%. They complain about the services of electricity companies, water and sewerage and mobile operators, district heating, banks and more. |
The following are the signals of violated socio -economic rights, which are 17.6%, and for violated property right – 11%. The number of violated rights of citizens from credit and financial institutions, collection companies and private enforcement agents (PEA) is 6.5%, is also understood by the report.
