Since the introduction of
direct access to my Office in 1994 and the extension of The
Ombudsman's jurisdiction to cover major statutory bodies, my
Office has experienced a rising trend of complaints. One of
the factors that contributes to such a trend is the
increasing expectation of the public towards an open, fair
and accountable public administration as the public have
come to know more about the operation of the public sector
and their rights through the performance pledges and
complaint procedures published by government departments and
statutory bodies. Perhaps as a result of this, there has
emerged a public less tolerant of poor service and more
ready to complain. Having dealt with over 8,000 complaints
in the past four years, my Office has accumulated
substantial experience and expertise in the resolution of
disputes. In so doing, my Office gives the people aggrieved
by actions of the public service in Hong Kong the capacity
to question the authority and to seek redress.
In addition to these investigations, my Office has
conducted 15 direct investigations with the intention to
eliminating what might be termed the root causes of many
of the complaints encountered. Our recommendations,
totalling some 1,400, have helped to improve the
standard of public administration by identifying the
underlying causes of the problems and suggesting
improvements. We have also advised departments and
statutory bodies in our recommendations on risk
management matters. We are now conducting studies with
similar aims on housing and prison complaints which
constitute the bulk of complaints we received. The
results of our studies will be published in my next
Annual Report.
Resolution of complaints lodged with this Office is
dealt with by way of investigation, rendering
assistance/clarification and the Internal Complaint
Handling Programme. Since April 1997, my Office has
launched the mediation service as another alternative
dispute resolution method with the hope of reinforcing
societal cohesion and fostering understanding between
the disputing parties. So far we have completed 5
successful mediations involving the Post Office, the
Home Affairs Department, the Agriculture and Fisheries
Department, the Lands Department and the Housing
Department. I believe that the resolution of disputes
should move from the competitive style fostered by an
adversarial system towards caring for others within a
communal setting.
I am also charged with the duty to conduct
investigations into alleged breaches of the Code on
Access to Information applied to all government policy
bureaux and departments including the Police and the
ICAC. So far my Office has dealt with five such
complaints. Like the freedom of information legislations
elsewhere, Hong Kong's Code on Access to Information is
not simply to promote the individual's access to public
information. It also promotes openness and
accountability of the governmental system generally. I
believe that any freedom of information act or code
should attempt to balance the right to access and the
right to privacy.
Following the introduction of our Administrative
Fairness Checklist and our Administrative Ethics
Checklist, this Office will provide further guidance for
public bodies by publishing The Ombudsman's Guide on
Good Standards of Customer Service. The leaflet will
provide a useful reference for the public service as to
how they can best serve the community by delivering the
services to customers in line with the objectives and
missions of their organisations in a responsive,
reasonable, fair, impartial and positive manner.
In the past two years, we have organized three
successful Complaint Management Workshops. The next one
will be held on 1st April this year. We will soon
publish a Handbook on Internal Complaint Handling for
reference of the public sector organisations. To educate
newly recruited public officers on the work, functions
and complaint handling procedures of my Office, we
intend to give talks and presentations in their
induction training programmes in a structured manner.
The Ombudsman Awards introduced last July are to be
presented annually, in recognition of public sector
organisations' positive and supportive stance towards
the Ombudsman's investigation of complaints to bring
about improvement in the quality of service and promote
fairness in public administration.
One of the important features of the Ombudsman
institution is the power of an Ombudsman to make
recommendations following his investigation into an
alleged act of maladministration. In my case, I am
empowered under Section 16 of The Ombudsman Ordinance to
report my opinion and reasons together with the
statement of any remedy that I consider should be
provided and a statement of any recommendation that I
think fit to make.
At present, such recommendations are made to redress
the grievances and propose administrative, procedural,
policy or even legal changes with a view to preventing
recurrence of similar mistakes and eventually to
bringing about improvement in the quality and standard
of the public administration. We are now devising
guidelines on recommending appropriate and reasonable
remedies to justified complaints based on the principle
of "putting the complainant in the position he or she
would have been in had the maladministration not
occurred". I hope to announce such guidelines after
consultations with the Administration.
If an Ombudsman is to be of good service to the public,
he must be clearly visible and easily accessible. In
making the Ombudsman's services better understood and
utilized, my Office continues with our public education
and awareness initiatives including regular programmes
of meeting Councils, Boards and public sector
organisations. We intend to visit more organisations in
the community. While schools and youth groups remain our
key targets for outreaching, my Office is developing a
teaching kit to educate the young about the Ombudsman
system.
Our Non-official Justices of the Peace (JPs) Assistance
Scheme introduced in 1996 is bearing fruits. Almost half
of all the JPs have joined the Scheme to promote the
Ombudsman system and bring our attention to areas of
concern or deficiencies in public administration. To
further enhance the Scheme, we are exploring the
possibility of arranging visits to Councils, departments
and statutory bodies for our JPs in relation to the work
of my Office.
No culture, be it eastern or western, has a monopoly on
concepts associated with fairness, justice, democracy
and human rights. Human rights express universal
requirements of social justice. The international
practice today is that of encouraging the development of
justice institutions to ensure good governance in every
society. In many countries in which Ombudsman offices
exist, the institution acts primarily as monitor of
administrative unfairness. However, in a number of
countries, the Ombudsman office plays a much more
important and central role in the protection of human
rights. Here in Hong Kong, my office acts as a deterrent
against the misuse and abuse of public power to deny
basic human rights by upholding the dignity of the
individual and giving people the opportunity to question
irregularity and unfairness in public administration and
to challenge the appropriateness of official behaviour
and actions. 1998 marks the 50th Anniversary of the
United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I
intend to foster a proper understanding required in the
right perspective of the work of my Office in the sphere
of human rights.
Hong Kong is now a Special Administrative Region of
China. This has presented exciting challenges and also
opportunities for my Office in improving the quality of
public administration by promoting fair and ethical
practices and by ensuring that public service providers
are accountable for the quality of their performance. I
will be proactive in performing my duties and I will use
with dignity, my credibility to bring about change. I
will continue to be a willing listener, a vigorous
investigator, a sincere persuader and a neutral mediator
seeking redress of grievances and resolution to disputes
culturally appropriate to Hong Kong.
(January 1998) |
