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Annual report 2000 |  |
Permissible measuresWhere our investigation reveals infringement or imminent threat thereof, of an educational right the Office may apply the aforementioned instrument of making a recommendation or initiative. Initiatives are addressed to infringing institutions; recommendations are submitted to the supervisory authority of the institution, asking them to eliminate the infringement or the imminent threat of the infringement in question. Both an initiative and a recommendation are considered as special measures, in contrast to official decisions made by authorities, as they are not binding, i.e.) the institutions to which they are addressed are not obliged to comply with them. The Decree imposes an obligation on institutions only to respond to our initiatives within a given deadline. For according to Article 7 (9) of the Decree, an institution has to inform the Office concerning its position with respect to our initiative or recommendation and the measures taken based on its position, within 30 days of receipt of the communication of the initiative or recommendation. As a result of the obligation of the institution to respond to our initiative or recommendation, the proceedings of the Office are not terminated at the point of issuing the initiative or recommendation. The statutory regulation is aimed to ensure the continuation of the technical/professional dialogue between the educational institution and the Office and to enable each party in this dialogue to elaborate the arguments supporting its position. Our measures could not successfully fulfil their function as they are without the element of an enforcement mechanism. Institutions have to make sure that the proposed solution is appropriate and is in line with the relevant statutory provisions. This is the only way to ensure that institutions carry out initiatives or recommendations on a voluntary basis and make sure that no similar infringement takes place after the initiatives are implemented. The Decree governing the operations of the Office also enables the withdrawal or modification of our initiative or measure if the arguments of the institution concerned are found convincing. Thus far, this has occurred only once. The effectiveness of our measures is indicated by the fact that so far we have applied the instrument of issuing initiatives/recommendations only in 35 cases and the institutions concerned refused to accept our position only in a few instances. Resolutions or measures taken by institutions have been observed to infringe the educational rights of individuals. There have been only three cases so far where the Office established that the infringement of rights, or the imminent threat of such infringement, was a result of weaknesses in the relevant pieces of legislation. In these cases we exercised the right granted to the Office by the DOCER and made proposals to the Minister of Education to issue, amend or revoke legal regulations to avoid or terminate the infringement. The Decree also imposes an obligation on the Office in case of learning of an infringement to contact the authority that is authorised to act, to submit reports or begin legal proceedings. So far we have learned of an infringement that justified the initiation of civil charges for infringement. (VI/286/2000.) Besides observing procedural guarantees the Office may also make public announcements. Besides the submission and disclosure of its annual activity report, the Office also informs the general public through the media. Since March 15, 2001, the Office may also be contacted through the Internet, at www.oktbiztos.hu.
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OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER FOR EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS |
Impresszum |