Again in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions impacted the work of the Ombudsman Office, in particular as monitoring visits were initially postponed and later by necessity held in online meeting rooms. However, in 2021 staff from the Parliamentary Ombudsman were able to travel to Greenland on a 16-day monitoring visit. An article in the newly published Annual Report covers the visit which comprised six Prison and Probation Service institutions, large and small, and fourteen police detention facilities and municipal bailiffs.
‘Our main impression was that prison inmates and people in police custody are treated with dignity and consideration in Greenland,’ says Parliamentary Ombudsman Niels Fenger: ‘There’s not the strain on the capacity in Prison and Probation Service institutions that we often see in Denmark – furthermore, many inmates in open institutions are able to work outside the institutions, thus maintaining their connection to their local community. This all works as great advantages.”
The Annual Report also covers a range of topics related to complaint cases. Here as well, COVID-19 was a significant factor: Some 100 complaints were related to the authorities’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in addition, a number of complaints about access to files concerned the health authorities’ COVID-19 efforts or inquiries into the COVID-19-related culling of mink.
Overall, the Ombudsman opened more than 5,600 cases in 2021.
Read the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Annual Report for 2021.
Further information:
Director of International Relations, Klavs Kinnerup Hede, kkh@ombudsmanden.dk