MADRID/SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Ombudsman received a total of 1,510 complaints in the Canary Islands of national origin in 2022, 79 less than in 2021 (-4.9%). Thus, these 1,510 complaints represent 4.95% of the national total, the fifth highest percentage by community.
This is clear from the Institution’s Annual Report, which the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, delivered this Monday to the president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet.
Most of the files in the Archipelago came from the ‘Employment and Social Security’ area, with 266, followed by ‘Justice Administration’, with 184; those that are under study, with 131; ‘Interior Affairs’, with 90; ‘Public Function and Employment’, with 87; ‘Education’, with 81; and ‘Migrations’, with 80; among other.
At the national level, the Ombudsman received 31,077 complaints in 2022, 2,062 more than in 2021, most of them related to Social Security and employment, with the Administration of Justice, with public function and employment, with the Interior, education , migrations, public services, asylum, health and economic activity.
Specifically, the institution processed 31,452 files, 2,051 more than in 2021, which gave rise to 2,498 resolutions to the different administrations, of which 739 were recommendations, 1,392 suggestions, 365 reminders of legal duties and two warnings.
In addition, it initiated 250 ex officio actions before different administrations, and received 125 requests for the filing of unconstitutionality and amparo appeals before the Constitutional Court –corresponding to 11 state laws and decrees and five regional laws and decrees–. In addition, he personally assisted 37,210 citizens, 36,152 of them through telephone calls and 1,058 in person.
According to Ángel Gabilondo, “citizens have insisted with their complaints, among other things, that administrations should not neglect healthcare or essential public services because they are fundamental in a robust, fair and supportive rule of law.”
Likewise, it has specified that the complaints of the citizens have also been addressed to “that the digitization processes must be compatible with face-to-face assistance for people who, due to certain circumstances, have difficulty accessing virtual or online communication”.
In this same sense, Gabilondo has highlighted that there have been “large” complaints received “due to the difficulty that citizens face when it comes to getting an appointment at Social Security offices and at the State Public Employment Service (SEPES)”.
“The report that we present today to the president of the Congress of Deputies and that has been registered in the Cortes Generales, we have tried to make it more agile, brief, accessible and to clearly portray the main citizen concerns. It is not a succession of ups and downs or circumstances that concern citizens, but it could be said that they are largely the protagonists and editors of it, which constitutes a certain X-ray of Spanish society”, he stressed.
By geographical origin, the largest number of complaints came from the Community of Madrid (7,780), Andalusia (3,394), the Valencian Community (3,154) and Catalonia (2,975). The situation of 2021 is repeated when these four communities occupied, in the same order, the same position in the ranking.
The 2022 Annual Report includes, in addition to the statistical data, a list of the most outstanding issues in which the institution has intervened, and the activity by areas of supervision of public administrations. The report closes with notes about the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, and about the request from the Congress of Deputies to the institution, in March 2022, to create an independent commission to prepare a report on complaints of sexual abuse. in the sphere of the Catholic Church and the role of public authorities.
According to the Ombudsman, currently the work “advances, testimonies continue to be collected and the report has begun” whose state of the art he intends to present in the Congress of Deputies “before the end of the legislature.”
