{"title":"Ombudsmen as Courts","authors":"Stephen Thomson","doi":"10.1093/OJLS/GQAA056","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n The non-judicial character of ombudsmen is viewed as their greatest asset, offering a more accessible, informal and flexible channel than courts for expressing grievances. Yet the Pensions Ombudsman has objected vigorously to its characterisation in the Chancery Division as ‘not a court’, pointing to a range of judicial qualities with which it has been statutorily invested. This raises the broader question of whether ombudsmen can be courts; a rarely considered characterisation. It is argued in this article that, although some ombudsmen exhibit judicial or quasi-judicial attributes, they are categorically distinct from courts and should remain so. Parliament must be astute not to invest ombudsmen with too many judicial qualities, lest the boundary between exercising judicial functions and exercising the judicial power of the state is crossed. This article also gives cause to reflect more broadly on the fundamental and distinctive nature of courts, tribunals and ombudsmen.","PeriodicalId":47225,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OJLS/GQAA056","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The non-judicial character of ombudsmen is viewed as their greatest asset, offering a more accessible, informal and flexible channel than courts for expressing grievances. Yet the Pensions Ombudsman has objected vigorously to its characterisation in the Chancery Division as ‘not a court’, pointing to a range of judicial qualities with which it has been statutorily invested. This raises the broader question of whether ombudsmen can be courts; a rarely considered characterisation. It is argued in this article that, although some ombudsmen exhibit judicial or quasi-judicial attributes, they are categorically distinct from courts and should remain so. Parliament must be astute not to invest ombudsmen with too many judicial qualities, lest the boundary between exercising judicial functions and exercising the judicial power of the state is crossed. This article also gives cause to reflect more broadly on the fundamental and distinctive nature of courts, tribunals and ombudsmen.
期刊介绍:
The Oxford Journal of Legal Studies is published on behalf of the Faculty of Law in the University of Oxford. It is designed to encourage interest in all matters relating to law, with an emphasis on matters of theory and on broad issues arising from the relationship of law to other disciplines. No topic of legal interest is excluded from consideration. In addition to traditional questions of legal interest, the following are all within the purview of the journal: comparative and international law, the law of the European Community, legal history and philosophy, and interdisciplinary material in areas of relevance.