“What we feel is the absence of special attention, a special urgency,” stated the deputy ombudsman, referring to the delays in granting a merit scholarship to those who meet the criteria.
This scholarship, she emphasized, is awarded to families in need and students who performed well the previous year: “It has this dual aspect, rewarding merit and effort (…). This merit scholarship is obviously pertinent.”
“Having a delay of more than a year for someone who met the requirements, receiving the scholarship after more than a calendar year is not the same as someone who worked abroad, has a pension in Switzerland, has such a pension, and the calculation is complicated, but a provisional pension is given, and the person waits. It is not the same thing,” she noted.
“Delay is a problem, but are we, as a country, not capable of prioritizing and seeing if it concerns someone who is on the street or someone for whom this is the only source of income?” she questioned.
The deputy ombudsman spoke at the Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees Committee, where she presented two reports from the institution.
Estrela Chaby also mentioned that the Ombudsman is “very attentive” to housing issues and the development of plans in this area.
“We are trying to address the issue of houses, public housing in need of repairs, inhabited units – which is a serious number and deeply concerning to us – and require significant repairs,” she added, noting that there are homes without a “functional bathroom.”
“We are very attentive to housing, both in terms of program design and the condition of the housing stock. We have maintained frequent dialogue with the IHRU (Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation),” she specified.
The deputy ombudsman was questioned by parliamentarians about the situation of homeless people. “Currently, in the housing issue, the situation of people who are homeless is always mentioned,” she replied.
Estrela Chaby further informed the committee that the actual response time to citizens by the Ombudsman’s Office is around 80 days.
The hearing of the deputy ombudsman aimed to present two reports released in July: the annual report of the Ombudsman’s Office (2024) and the report on the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture.
