Staffing of human rights monitoring commissions renewed

Many thanks to previous head of commission Gabriele Hadler

A new head has been appointed to Commission 6, which is responsible for Burgenland and parts of Lower Austria. The new head will be Karin Rowhani-Wimmer, a lawyer and qualified social worker, who was already a member of this commission. She succeeds Gabriele Hadler. "We would like to express our sincere thanks for Prof Hadler's many years of commitment to the preventive safeguarding of human rights in institutions where restrictions of liberty may occur," said Ombudswoman Gaby Schwarz and Ombudsmen Bernhard Achitz and Walter Rosenkranz: "We look forward to working with the new head of the commission, Rowhani-Wimmer, and of course with the other commission heads and all commission members."

Keyword: preventive human rights monitoring

The Austrian Ombudsman Board has a constitutional mandate to scrutinise public and private institutions in which people's freedom is or may be restricted in order to protect and promote human rights. In addition to prisons and police facilities, this also includes hospitals, retirement and nursing homes, child and youth welfare facilities, facilities for underage refugees, residential homes and workshops as well as day centres for people with disabilities.

Commissions of the Austrian Ombudsman Board inspect 5,300 facilities

Prisons and detention centres are inspected by a separate nationwide commission, while the six regional commissions are responsible for the - almost always unannounced - inspections of care homes, psychiatric wards, children's and youth hostels, residential facilities for people with disabilities and police facilities. Police operations at demonstrations, border controls and deportations also fall under their control remit. In total, 5,300 facilities are subject to the Ombudsman Board's preventive human rights monitoring.

Heads of the commissions of the Austrian Ombudsman Board

• Nationwide Commission for Prisons: Prof. Dr Reinhard Klaushofer
• Commission 1 for Tyrol and Vorarlberg: Univ.-Prof. Dr Verena Murschetz, LL.M.
• Commission 2 for Salzburg and Upper Austria: Associate Professor Dr Karin Gutiérrez-Lobos
• Commission 3 for Styria and Carinthia: Mag.a Dr Reingard Riener-Hofer
• Commission 4 for the Viennese municipal districts 3 to 19 and 23: Associate Professor Dr Andrea Berzlanovich
• Commission 5 for the Viennese municipal districts 1, 2, 20 to 22 and for parts of Lower Austria: Professor emeritus DDr Heinz Mayer
• Commission 6 for Burgenland and parts of Lower Austria: DSAin Dr Karin Rowhani-Wimmer

Commission members come from the fields of psychiatry, nursing, social pedagogy, health professions, law and matters relating to people with disabilities, among others.