News

13 April 2025

Today, 13 April 2025, it is the 20^th anniversary of the election of the first Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria.

This is a time of summary of conclusions, a time of building, a time when the institution headed by four successful ombudsmen, made a reputation as an important and unsurmountable factor both nationally and internationally.

In the course of two decades, the national human rights institution built and developed expert capacity to work for the sake of the interest and protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms and today the Ombudsman Institution is recognized as their respected, responsible and active advocate. It is an advocate and mediator that, over the years, built a direct relationship of trust and respect for its support for any individual and his/her specific problem and for the solution of pressing cases of relevance to the general public.

Facts speak for themselves: over the past year over 13,000 citizens lodged complaints with the Ombudsman Institution to ask for help, advice, protection and support. This is not just rigid statistics as each complaint and report brings forward a real human problem that the Ombudsman’s staff solved leaning on their undisputed professionalism, expertise and dedication. Within the entire 20-year long period, the experts of the Ombudsman Institution provided assistance to tens of thousands of people.

What is the background? The first Ombudsman Act was passed in 2003 and entered into force on 1 January 2004 but became effective in 2005 when the first Ombudsman – Ginyo Ganev (2005-2010), was elected by the National Assembly. He laid the foundations of the Institution by the recruitment of a team of professionals some of who still work there today.

During his term in office, a series of amendments to the Constitution and to the legislation were passed, thereby the originally limited powers of the Ombudsman after the Act took effect were expanded and the Institution assumed a full-fledged role in human rights protection. Thus the Ombudsman, in addition to his pronouncement on individual complaints and reports, or checks on his own initiative, into specific violations, is provided with new opportunities to intervene with institutions in the interest of citizens.

In 2006, with amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, the power of the Ombudsman as an independent constitutional body was further expanded. Art. 91а vests the Ombudsman with the authority to monitor the state of human rights and the implementation of human rights standards and to make his/her assessments and recommendations to that effect. It was then that the Ombudsman was vested with the power to approach the Constitutional Court in the event of violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms.

In 2007, amendments to the Judiciary Act empowered the Ombudsman to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal and/or the Supreme Administrative Court to request an interpretative decision or an interpretative ruling.

Following amendments to the Ombudsman Act in 2012 with Ombudsman Konstantin Penchev (2010-2015) in office in keeping with the principles concerning the status and powers of national institutions for the protection of human rights (the so-called Paris Principles), adopted by Resolution of the UN General Assembly on 20 December 1993 (A/Res/48/134), the Ombudsman received a new mandate and assumed the functions of a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) as per the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It was then that the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria was accredited by the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights with the United Nations Organization.

A key directorate NPM was established whose function was to monitor, verify and assess respect for human rights in prisons and penitentiaries, pre-trial detention facilities, state-run psychiatric hospitals, refugee accommodation centers and special homes for temporary accommodation of foreigners, cells for 24-hour custody with the Regional Police Departments and family-type accommodation centers for children and adults.

Again, in 2012, the Ombudsman was assigned to protect the rights of the child. In this way, the Ombudsman assumed the role of a guarantor that the actions of the institutions in charge would comply with the national and international standards as codified in the national legislation and incorporated in the international treaties to which the Republic of Bulgaria is a party. The Ombudsman took the commitment to act to promote the rights of the child. The Ombudsman Institution was given the opportunity to make recommendations to the Council of Ministers and to the National Assembly to sign and ratify international instruments in the field of human rights and to give opinions on bills that concern the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Ombudsman Act grants the right to non-profit legal persons to public benefit whose remit includes the protection of human rights to approach the Ombudsman.

In the term in office of Ombudsman Maya Manolova (2015-2019), in 2018 the Institution was vested with additional powers by the Ombudsman Act: from then onwards it was free to receive and examine complaints and reports about violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms as committed by government and municipal authorities and their administrations or by the persons commissioned to provide public services, as well as by private-law entities. Thus in the exercise of this power, the Ombudsman can now make proposals and recommendations for the promotion and protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms that are threatened by private-law entities.

In 2019, the Persons with Disabilities Act added an extra function to the Ombudsman’s powers. A Monitoring Council was set up which comprises the Anti-Discrimination Commission, members of NGOs of and for people with disabilities and of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to monitor, promote and protect the rights of people with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Maya Manolova made the Ombudsman Institution visible, recognizable and proactive as she shifted to onsite modality by opening away visitors’ centers and centers in small populated areas. Together with her Deputy, Diana Kovacheva, in 2019, they brought Bulgaria into the company of states with a national human rights institution that meets the highest UN standards and this is success not only for the Ombudsman but also for the whole country.

The accreditation with the highest human rights status “A” for a national human rights institution in line with the UN standards is proof that the National Ombudsman Institution performs in full compliance with the requirements of the UN Paris Principles Relating to Human Rights Institutions.

The “A” status provided the Bulgarian Ombudsman with the opportunity to participate and express his/her positions at the meetings of all UN human rights committees and in the Human Rights Council.

Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva (2019-2024) built on the achievements: in 2021 she was elected in the governing bodies of GANHRI – the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, and ENNHRI – the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions. The European members of the GANHRI governance are just four and Bulgaria’s Ombudsman is one of them. This prestigious election enables the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria to contribute to the more efficient performance of human rights institutions and to ensure that the Bulgarian citizens’ problems are heard more clearly and to seek optimal solutions at the highest international level. Diana Kovacheva is the first Ombudsman to speak at two UN committees – the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

On 4 May 2023, an amendment to the Ombudsman Act further expanded the powers of the Institution by the assignment of an external audit into the Commission for Personal Data Protection (CPDP), which is the central external reporting authority under the Act on the Protection of Persons Who Report or Publicly Disclose Information on Breaches (APPWRPDIB).

With the adoption of the APPWRPDIB Bulgaria transposed Directive (EU) 2019/1937. A new Directorate Audit of Work with Reports and Protection of the Persons Reporting was set up and in 2024, it managed to build capacity and to write rules for independent external audit of the Central External Auditing Authority and for Protection of Persons in the Republic of Bulgaria as per Art. 19 APPWRPDIB.

On the eve of the 20^th anniversary of the election of the first Ombudsman, the human rights institution looks forward to the election of the fifth Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria. The one-year operation of the Institution without an Ombudsman as Prof. Kovacheva was elected a judge for the European Court of Human Rights and resigned before the end of her term in office, and without a Deputy Ombudsman as Elena Cherneva-Markova resigned for personal reasons, proved again that citizens have strong trust in the human rights institution as built over the years and remaining steadfast as they continue to file complaints and to seek assistance for their cases.

The Ombudsman’s team continues to operate in this emergency situation responsibly and competently, and to fulfil its duty in the interest of people as it registers, examines and advises on the reports of citizens and their organizations, makes recommendations, carries out inspections, acts upon its own initiative whenever necessary, opens away visitors centers, publicly expresses positions and prepares opinions to be delivered to the competent local and government authorities.

Therefore, for the sake of the interest of citizens and democratic values it is important that the Institution be headed by an experienced human rights functionary who can compare with the previous ombudsmen. The bar has been raised high and any compromise with the personality of the Ombudsman would be a compromise at the expense of the values and rights of the citizens.

However, the greatest challenge facing the new ombudsman is the expectation of the possession of skills, knowledge and vision of adequate action in the context of Artificial Intelligence and human rights protection. As ex Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva noted: “No doubt the AI systems have enormous capacity to help people and to contribute to their well-being and health while at the same time they may slip out of control and cause unpredictable harm.”

Here are the facts: life without Artificial Intelligence has become unthinkable; the benefits are enormous and absolutely undeniable. However, Artificial Intelligence has no consciousness, emotions, empathy that are characteristic only of humans. For the time being there are no assurances that the AI systems would follow a course that is fully in the interest of man and that human rights would be fully protected. Here is the role of the Ombudsman who is to monitor and counteract with all legal instruments possible distortions and potential risks. Such may be the absence of transparency of the decision-making process, discrimination, encroachment on the right to privacy, abuse of personal data or criminal use of AI systems and many other.

Therefore, one of the most important tasks of the next ombudsman and of all ombudsmen from now on is that the use of AI systems does not “robotize” the approach to the solution of citizens’ problems because it is easier and faster and that they monitor and oppose such an approach by government institutions, local authorities and private-law entities. This is because despite the new realities of life with Artificial Intelligence, the future must belong to people, not to machines. The monitoring and evaluation of the AI systems by the Ombudsman must be continuous in order to prevent violations of the rights of people.

In this sense, the “coding” of fundamental rights, including by legislative changes, their protection and strict compliance with them in the use of Artificial Intelligence must be the Ombudsman’s constant and invariable priority.