The principle of accessibility as one of the basic principles of the work of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Background. Based on an analysis of legislation, annual reports of the Russian Ombudsman, and legal literature, issues of the legal nature and content of the principle of accessibility as one of the basic principles of the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation are considered. The authors focus not only on the norma-tive components of this principle, but also on the discretionary powers of the Russian Om-budsman in terms of filling the principle with appropriate content. Materials and methods. To achieve these goals, the authors used formal legal and comparative legal methods. Re-sults. Based on the analysis, the authors have identified the structure and content of the principle of accessibility in the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. Conclusions. The principle of accessibility in the activities of the Om-budsman can be considered as an opportunity guaranteed by law, as well as provided by the Ombudsman himself, for every person to freely apply to the Ombudsman for assistance in restoring their violated rights. The accessibility of the service is thus based both on those legislative guarantees that are provided to citizens when contacting the service, and on the discretionary powers of the Ombudsman himself, who often independently determines pri-orities in ways to receive complaints and other information from citizens (through informa-tional, physical and partly legal accessibility).

Keywords

• ombudsman
• commissioner for human rights
• accessibility
• appeal
• annual report