Remit and Powers
Any EU citizen or entity may appeal the ombudsman to investigate an EU institution on the grounds of maladministration: administrative irregularities, unfairness, discrimination, abuse of power, failure to reply, refusal of information or unnecessary delay. The ombudsman can not investigate the European Court of Justice in its judicial capacity, its General Court, the Civil Service Tribunal, national/regional administrations (even where EU law is concerned) or judiciaries or private individuals or corporations.
The ombudsman also has no binding powers to compel compliance with his rulings, yet the level of compliance is very high. The ombudsman primarily relies on the power of persuasion and publicity.
Read more about this topic: European Ombudsman
Famous quotes containing the word powers:
“... when I exclaim against novels, I mean when contrasted with those works which exercise the understanding and regulate the imagination.—For any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by a slight exertion of its thinking powers ...”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)