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35 Intertax 331 (2007)
Taxpayer's Rights and the Role of the Tax Ombudsman: An Analysis from a Spanish and Comparative Law Perspective, The

handle is hein.kluwer/intrtax0035 and id is 313 raw text is: I University of Madrid 1. Ombudsman: history and development Looking back over the history of the Ombudsman around the world, this could be described as a combination of three interrelated developments, summed up by: proliferation - as regards numbers, diversification - as regards categories and types, and mutation and variation - as regards functions and purpose.' By 2006, the Ombudsman Office, at the national level of government, existed in approximately 125 countries around the world. Some countries have Ombudsman offices at national and sub national levels, such as Australia, Argentina, Mexico and Spain, while other nations have Ombudsman offices only at the sub national government level, as in Canada, India and Italy. Public sector Ombudsman offices are located in countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia, the Pacific region and Asia. The word 'Ombudsman' is of Swedish origin, and means 'representative'. Many other names are used to represent the Ombudsman office in the different countries that have adopted the office. For example, Defensor del Pueblo is the title of the Ombudsman office in a number of Spanish-speaking countries (such as Spain, Argentina, Peru and Colombia). Parliamen- tary Commissioner for Administration (Sri Lanka, United Kingdom), Mddiateur de la Republique (e.g. France, Gabon, Mauritania, Senegal), Difensore Civico (Italy), Citizen's Aide (Iowa), are the titles of some other Ombudsman offices around the world. Also, in a number of countries, the protection of human rights is one of the major purposes of the Ombudsman office, and this is often reflected in the name of the office. The roots of the modern Ombudsman can be traced back to the Justitieombudsman (Ombudsman for Justice) of Sweden which was established in 1809.2 The office did not spread to other countries until the twentieth century, when it was adopted in other Scandinavian countries, in Finland (1919), Denmark (1955) and Norway (1962). The popularity of the Ombudsman office increased from the early 1960s, as various Commonwealth and other, mainly European, countries established the office: for example, New Zealand (1962), United Kingdom (1967), most Cana- dian provinces (starting in 1967), Tanzania (1968), Israel (1971), Puerto Rico (1977), Australia (1977 at the federal level, 1972-1979 at the state level), France (1973), Portugal (1975), Austria (1977), Spain (1981) and The Netherlands (1981). Furthermore, in 1995 the European Union created a European Ombudsman under the Maastricht Treaty. The philosophical core of the Ombudsman can be traced in government itself, as it is not an end in itself. It derives its raison d'dtre from its task of serving the interests of its citizens and the institutions of their society, and it derives its legitimacy from the way in which it does so.3 2. Prospects of Ombudsman concept In general, an Ombudsman deals with claims and complaints from the citizens regarding decisions, actions or omissions of the public administration. Therefore, the role of the Ombudsman is to protect the citizens against violation of rights, abuse of powers, error, negligence, delays, unfair decisions and malad- ministration. The main goal consists of improving the public administration and making the government's actions more human, open and transparent. The office of Ombudsman may be foreseen in the country's constitution and supported by the legislation, or created by an act of the legislature and can be characterized as an instrument between politics and administration. To protect the citizens' rights, the Ombudsman generally holds different functions, such as: 1. to investigate whether the public administration is being performed contrary to law or unfairly; KIM I See R. Gregory, 'The Ombudsman Observed', in The International Ombudsman Yearbook, vol. I (Kluwer Law International, 1997), p. 78. 2 The Swedish parent organization was established as a prosecution office, in order to strengthen the legislative power's control over Sweden's relatively independent public servants and their compliance with legislation. See M. Oosting, 'Protecting the integrity and independence of the Ombudsman Institution: the Global Perspective' in The International Ombudsman Yearbook, vol. 5 (Kluwer Law International, 2001), p. 15. INTERTAX, Volume 35, Issue 5 C Kluwer Law international 2007 The Taxpayer's Rights and the Role of the Tax Ombudsman: an Analysis from a Spanish and Comparative Law Perspective Fernando Serrano, Tax Ombudsman of the Municipality of Madrid, Associate Professor of Public Finance and Tax Law, Complutense 331

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