A debate that no one actually wanted to have. Faction specialists in the Amsterdam city council were visibly upset on Thursday with the clash between Amsterdam ombudsman Munish Ramlal and mayor Femke Halsema over Amsterdam’s integrity policy.
Halsema found his research into the functioning of the municipal Integrity Office Report with Confidencebelow par. Ramlal felt that the mayor was putting pressure on him and that his independence had been compromised.
“As a council, we hear two realities, both of which can be true,” said VVD faction leader Daan Wijnants, expressing the feelings of the factions during the first public debate on the issue. Halsema and the ombudsman were both present for the first time.
Pushed the boundaries
The conflict between the two has damaged all agencies and institutions involved: both the impartiality of the Integrity Office has been questioned, as well as the reliability of the mayor, who is said to have put pressure on the ombudsman. Halsema had pushed the boundaries by raising the issue of the ombudsman’s functioning during a municipal council meeting, Wijnants argued. “In retrospect, that was the moment for the mayor to say: I will stop trying to make adjustments here.”
The mayor would have difficulty building a bridge to the ombudsman. She acknowledged on Thursday evening that the municipality has a problem with social safety, but also emphasized the importance of the Integrity Office and the work they do. According to her, their investigations led to the resignation of a councilor and top civil servant: “I ask for some empathy for the employees of the Integrity Bureau.”
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Ramlal opened the investigation into the municipality’s integrity office last year and concluded from the experiences of 82 people, including 77 municipal officials, that there is a lot wrong with the office. The ombudsman again emphasized that the Integrity Office does little with the complaints from civil servants who report it. But apart from this plea, little was said about the contents of the report on Thursday evening. The big question was whether the ombudsman could still do his work independently.
‘Messy process’
The first tentative conclusion from CDA spokesperson Rogier Havelaar: Halsema “should have shown more respect” for the role of the ombudsman. According to him, no constitutional line had been crossed. But when it comes to power and counter-power, the counter-power should be protected.
PvdA spokesperson Lian Heinhuis called it a messy process. She believes that further reflection is needed to understand how it could get to this point.
Halsema herself also reflected on her conversations with the ombudsman, in which she accused him of, among other things, ‘malice’. “I also find it problematic that I am having a conversation aimed at de-escalation, and then I read a summary in newspapers that I do not recognize at all,” she said. Halsema herself also had feelings about those conversations. “But I didn’t put it in newspapers.”
Halsema called Ramlal a competent ombudsman, despite her criticism. She did not repeat her earlier threat in the municipal council that future cooperation between her and the ombudsman was at stake. When asked what that collaboration would look like, she said that she would handle it professionally: “Every day is a new day.”
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