Ombudsman forces U-turn from Council of Ministers

Date:25/09/03

By Martin Banks

THE Council of Ministers has backed down and agreed to give an unsuccessful job applicant access to her marked exam papers following pressure from the European Ombudsman.

The unnamed woman asked institution chiefs to let her see her marked script after shefailed to obtain the required pass mark in a competition for clerical assistants.

When the Council refused access, she complained to the Strasbourg-based Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros.

At first, the institution stood its ground, arguing that staff regulations state that selection board proceedings should be secret, to guarantee their independence and objectivity.

But Diamandouros insisted this should not prevent a candidate being allowed to see how their entrance paper had been marked and asked the Council to reconsider.

The Council has now agreed to give the woman access to her paper, bringing its policy into line with the other two main EU institutions, the Commission and Parliament, which agreed in 1999 and 2000 respectively to give access to marked examination scripts.

Diamandouros said: "Citizens who wish to work for the Union receive a very bad impression if they are left in doubt as to whether they have been assessed fairly and correctly.

"To dispel such doubt, it is essential that each candidate should have the chance to inspect the marked copy of his or her own exam script."

Meanwhile, a major report presented to the European Parliament this week praised the "remarkable" job done by the man Diamandouros replaced as ombudsman in March this year, Jacob Söderman.

The report, by UK MEP Alexander Stockton, said Söderman's tenure had marked an "important" milestone in the developing relationship between the EU and its citizens.

"Söderman left an indelible mark on the future development of the Union.

"Concerns expressed at the time of his appointment that the office would be subject to political, national and regional pressures proved to be completely unjustified, and his tenure of the office established an important tradition of impartiality that must be maintained.

"It is worth reflecting on where the EU would be if the Ombudsman's post had not been created.

"The thousands of cases that have been considered by the Ombudsman have eliminated an individual area of complaint or concern for EU citizens.

"However, the fact that the highest proportion of complaints remain those against the Commission shows that both he and the Parliament's petitions committee cannot afford to drop their guard."

The report found that the number of complaints made via the internet soared from around 16% in 1999 to almost 50% in 2002. At the same time, requests for online information went up from 1,260 in 2000 to 3,717 in 2002.

Looking to the future, Stockton, rapporteur on the Ombudsman for the petitions committee, said that all EU institutions must adopt the code of good administrative behaviour and that transparency is vital if the EU is to function with the support of 500 million citizens after enlargement next year.

Parliament publishes a report every year on the activities of the Ombudsman.

The Council of the European Union has bowed to pressure from the European Ombudsman and agreed to allow an unsuccessful job applicant access to her marked exam papers.