The ombudsmen of The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht are helping their colleague in Amsterdam in his conflict with mayor Femke Halsema. They call it “an unprecedented precedent” that the city council, with the consent of the mayor, decided on Thursday to initiate an external investigation into an investigation by the Amsterdam ombudsman, about which the mayor had expressed very negative views in an initial response.
The investigation could “damage the independence and the foundation of countervailing power,” the three ombudsmen write in their letter, dated Monday, November 10.
Ombudsman of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area Munish Ramlal published a report on the municipal Integrity Office last Thursday. For that investigation, he examined the reports about this department from 82 Amsterdam civil servants.
One of his conclusions: “The working method for social integrity reports leads to loss of confidence in the municipality.” Ramlal mentioned recommendations including the establishment of an external Integrity Committee and the possibility of having complaints about socially undesirable behavior handled by external experts.
Extremely damaging
Mayor Halsema said at a council committee meeting on Thursday that she believes the investigation is unsound. She cited a letter she had previously sent to the council’s presidency, in which she wrote that she has “doubts about future cooperation” with the ombudsman.
The Amsterdam ombudsman also sent a response to the events to the city council on Monday. He expresses his concerns about the intention to have his report tested by an external expert. “I find this particularly damaging to the ombudsman institution and its independence,” said Ramlal. He asks the council to appoint a mediator who can improve the “difficult” relationship between him and the mayor.
The mayor sent the letter she wrote to the presidium a month ago to the entire city council on Monday. In it she writes about the “major concerns about the functioning of the ombudsman”, following his investigation into “the functioning and positioning of the Integrity Office” and the report of which only a draft was ready at the time.
An appendix has been added to the letter, dated October 9. It outlines some “patterns” in the working methods of the ombudsman’s office, which, according to the city hall, concern, among other things, the “appearance of bias” of researchers, “interfering with judicial processes and first-line complaint handling” and an “unclear and inimitable investigation methodology”.
The ombudsmen of the three other major cities write in their letter that they are concerned that the actions of the Amsterdam city council and the municipal council “could set a precedent, also in other cities” and that through “investigations into investigations” the “actual problems behind complaints could be in danger of disappearing from view”.
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Critical report is bad: Amsterdam on collision course with its own ombudsman
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