The Role of National Ombudsman’s Offices in Promoting the Concept of good Administration in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. The way ahead
The Role of National Ombudsman’s Offices in Promoting the Concept of good Administration in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. The way ahead

Summary/Abstract: The private persons in any democratic state should have a right to dispute theadministrative decisions affecting their rights, freedoms or interests before (amongothers) competent independent courts. It is the key precondition for the principle oftransparent and responsible public administration as an integral part of democraticgovernance. In addition to the “judiciary control of the administrative decisions”,the private persons` human rights against the public administration may be alsoprotected through the Ombudsman office. The increasing importance of the aforementioned issues relating public administration and the various types of control ofthe administrative acts been long time ago reflected in the mandate of almost all ofthe key international inter-governmental organizations, especially the European onesincluding the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OSCE. The establishmentof both effective public administration and administrative justice system has been fora long period of time among the most “important and urgent” final strategic objectivesof almost any country in the Balkans region, including Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo.This process included (among others) establishing European-like Ombudsman officesin these countries.Against the above background the present paper firstly explains why the administrationaction must be controlled by the public, and it then outlines the European Right ofGood Administration, the Ombudsman Office`s mandate. This is then followed bypresenting the concept of European Administrative Space in terms of the Role ofthe OECD-SIGMA in Developing the Standards of Good Administration. Against thepreceding sub-sections the paper further presents the basic legislative framework foraction of the National Ombudsman Offices in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, whichis then followed by a short review of the actual state of play of the Principle No.2 ofthe SIGMA European Principles for Public Administration (as specifically related tothe accountability) in the three countries, on the basis of the relevant internationalmonitoring reports, including the most recent EU Commission`s Progress Report onthose countries. The paper finally concludes that Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo allhave already established the basic legislative framework for establishing their nationaladministrative judiciary system alongside which there is the one related to their own national Ombudsman office as well, while all of them are still more or less far frombeing fully in line with the principle No.2 of the SIGMA European Principles for PublicAdministration (as specifically related to the accountability). As to later, the paperparticularly stresses that Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo have (more or less) adoptedrules on independent status, functioning and powers of their own ombudsman officeand other oversight institutions in line with the relevant international standards, buttheir administrations are still too far of being ready and willing to fully implementingthe ombudsman institutions` recommendations. The fully implementation of theabove Principle No.2 is therefore one of the most important and serious presentchallenges for Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo on their individual road towards the EUmembership, in terms of building up their individual European administrative capacity.

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