This meeting was particularly urgent due to the fact that currently in Belarusian society there is a discussion on possible implementation of the Ombudsman’s institution.
Apart from the Ombudsman, Alexander Pavlichenko, Representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights for access to public information and protection of personal data, and Yuriy Belousov, the Representative of the Commissioner for realization of the national preventive mechanism took part in this meeting.
Valeriya Lutkovska familiarized the participants with the order of the election and the extent of Ombudsman ‘s powers in the Ukraine, with the structure of the Secretariat of Commissioner for Human Rights and the priority goals of its activities.
The Commissioner for Human Rights is elected  by a majority vote of the Parliament. The Secretariat of the Commissioner has 170 employees, of which 140 are involved in the processing of citizen’s complaint There are three regional offices – in Lviv, Dnepropetrovsk and Crimea. It is planned to open seven regional offices in 2013.
The main activities of the Ombudsman are consideration of direct appeals of citizens with complaints of human rights violations, as well as the analysis of legislation and laws in terms of their compliance with human rights standards. As a result monitoring of human rights violations is held, systemic problems in legislation are revealed and recommendations for improvement of the situation are elaborated. The Ombudsman reports annually to Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament).
It was noted that the strategy of the Ombudsman’s activities in Ukraine is on its formation stages. Financial aid for the development of strategy is provided by international organizations, UN in particular.

Valeriya Lutkovska paid special attention to the fact that one of the keys to successful activity of their office is cooperation with representatives of civil society, in particular non-governmental human rights organizations and volunteers. The Advisory Council of 28 people – representatives of NGOs is established under Ombudsman. They also held several numbers of positions in the Secretariat of the Commissioner.
Yuriy Belousov, the Representative of the Commissioner for realization of the national preventive mechanism dwelt on the issue of establishing a mechanism to prevent torture. Ombudsman’s staff have twenty-four-hour access to the places of confinement (colonies, mental hospitals, military units, etc.). They are trying to respond promptly to citizen’s appeals with reports on supposed cases of torture. During 3 months scheduled and unscheduled inspections were conducted in about 110 closed establishments. As a result of inspections the recommendations are elaborated and the monitoring of their implementations is held.
Alexander Pavlichenko, Representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights for access to public information and protection of personal data, told that the Expert council for freedom of information and protection of privacy is set up under the Commissioner for Human Rights. It consists of members of the public. Its objective is to develop an effective mechanism to protect citizens’ right to access to public information.
The final part of the meeting was given to answering the questions from the audience. During communication with the Belarusian participants it was revealed that Belarus and Ukraine have a number of common problems – a violation of the rights of citizens in places of imprisonment, lack of attention to the problems of people with disabilities and some others issues. Administrative resistance and bureaucracy in the courts and law enforcement prevent improvement of the situation.
Later, the discussion on the meeting with Ombudsman Valeriya Lutkovska was held within the framework of “International Law in Advocacy” program. All of the participants had positive impressions on the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, and the information capability of the meetings was noted.The participants of the program paid attention to the fact that the Ukrainian experience of cooperation with the Council of Europe as well as the functioning of the ombudsman and its cooperation with non-governmental organizations could be useful for Belarus. There is certain hope that implementation of Ukrainian experience would become possible soon.
“International Law in Advocacy” is an educational program of Human Rights House Network   for lawyers and human rights defenders. The program is carried out by members and partners of the HRH with the objective of the training of lawyers and human rights defenders to use international instruments for the protection of human rights, to promote the implementation of international standards of human rights in national practices and to provide better protection for human rights defenders and victims of human rights violations.

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