Mr. Zoran Pašalić, the Protector of Citizens, said that the regional cooperation of the Balkan Ombudspersons proved to be extremely important for helping citizens during the Covid-19 virus pandemic, and that it had solved many problems faced by citizens from the Balkans.
Mr. Pašalić emphasized that the Ombudsman Institution was extremely important in difficult situations, such as Covid-19 virus pandemic, and underlined that the number of Serbian citizens addresses to this institution surged in that period.
The Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia drew attention to the fact that this institution had worked more intensively during the state of emergency so as to respond to numerous citizens’ complaints.
In addition, Mr. Pašalić pointed out that two civil society organizations’ survey conducted last April, as well as the survey of the United Nations Human Rights Team from December 2020, showcased the Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia as the Institution which the citizens trusted the most and which they would first address in case they had any problems.
Mr. Pašalić participated in an online meeting of Balkan region ombudspersons, organized to exchange experiences on the current situation, the experiences of the ombudspersons in the context of the pandemic and to discuss the status of the "Network of National Ombudspersons of the Balkan region".
“Establishing a network of the Ombudspersons from the Balkan region is very important for the well-being of citizens who live, work or find themselves in the Balkans, which proved especially beneficial during the first days and months of the pandemic when citizens had problems regarding transit," said Mr. Pašalić thanking his colleagues from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with whom he cooperated in order to mitigate the problems of citizens in transit.
Conference participants agreed that the pandemic has definitely affected the human rights situation, especially in the areas of health care, access to education, labor rights, migration and stressed the importance of regional cooperation.