OSCE Centre in Ashgabat organizes visits to Estonia and Netherlands on handling individual complaints

ASHGABAT, 31 May 2012 – Representatives of the Turkmen National Institute of Democracy and Human Rights under the President of Turkmenistan completed today an OSCE-organized visit to Estonia and the Netherlands on practices in processing individual human rights complaints and communications.

The two-day visit was organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in co-operation with the Office of the Chancellor of Justice of Estonia and the Office of the National Ombudsman of The Netherlands. Experiences with handling human rights complaints and communications were exchanged during the visit, with special emphasis placed on the electronic processing of individual complaints and communications.

During the visit to the Office of the Chancellor of Justice of Estonia, the delegation was briefed on the mandate and structure of the Office as well as its functions as an Ombudsman and a body in charge of constitutional review. The delegation also discussed statistics on cases received by the Chancellor of Justice and institutional frameworks for the prevention of ill treatment.

In the Netherlands, they visited the Office of the National Ombudsman and discussed its mandate, methods of archiving human rights complaints and receiving citizens’ complaints.

“The visits provided the delegation from Turkmenistan with an opportunity to get acquainted with the tools, experience and practices in dealing with citizens’ complaints in two different OSCE participating States. This activity is part of a Centre’s project aimed to further strengthen the capacity of the National Institute of Democracy and Human Rights in this direction,” said Begoña Piñeiro Costas, the Human Dimension Officer of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat.