On The Changing History Of The British Parliamentary Ombudsman System(1967-2017)

Mutual learning between civilizations is a benefit,so is the exchange process between different legal civilizations.Nowadays,reforms of China's Censorial System have been implemented thoroughly,making it a need to see what similar situations are overseas.This thesis,which chose the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System as its object,aims to investigate the history of the foregoing system and to find out some true or good experience of UK.The British Parliamentary Ombudsman is a national ombudsman,whose jurisdiction includes UK government departments and other public organizations,public organizations in England,and reserved matters in devolved countries,who has the authority to remedy injustice as a result of maladministration.The British Parliamentary Ombudsman is also an independent public authority,making the executive to account,and itself being accountable to the parliament,with MP filter as its core characteristic.The Parliamentary Ombudsman System of UK is composed of several secondary systems,such as systems of Independence,Jurisdiction,Investigation Process and Report.When deciding to 'transplant' the Denmark system,British politicians made some revisions to the prototype so as to comply with UK's political traditions.Since 1967,with the initiatives of parliamentary ombudsmen,the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System has evolved so much,although there is little change to The Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967.Nowadays,the British Parliamentary Ombudsman has evolved into a constitutional public institution which exercises its powers independently,far from the original settlement of the 'pure'servant of the house of Commons,or an alternative mechanism to the courts.Meanwhile,the main role of the parliamentary ombudsman has changed so much,from fire-fighter to fire-watcher and fire-preventer.In UK,as an important element of the unwritten constitution,the Parliamentary Ombudsman System plays an effective role in remedying maladministration,making the executive to account and upholding human rights.The new emergence of the System of Ombudsman Justice,a core part of the administrative justice,a weight 'player' in constitutional games,and a 'pioneer'in the protection of citizens' rights,are the common awareness among the government,the academia and British people.This thesis consists of four parts,that's to say,the introduction,the theory,the history and the conclusion,which are divided into six chapters.Chapter one is the introduction.The problem awareness and the significance of the paper had been discussed first in chapter one.Another part of the introduction is the literature review.In view of the absence of this topic by Chinese scholars,the focus of this paper's literature review was put on UK scholars' research outputs.To fit the thought of 'Think as a British scholar',the writer chose the literature review of a newly publicized book,namely The Ombudsman Enterprise and Administrative Justice,as a reference.Then,the writer gave a systematically comb and critical comment on the present literature,according to the logical structure of the historical research,the factual research,and the fundamental theory.Finally,the methodology,the writing structure and innovation points were briefly discussed in this chapter.Chapter Two is the theory part of this thesis.In this chapter,to keep smooth of the paper,several preliminary questions such as 'what is the meaning of ombudsman',the concept of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman and related concepts(ie.,administrative justice,the select committee,the studying model),were analyzed fully first.Then,the writer investigated three typical theories on the justification of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System,that's to say,the theory of separation of powers and its variant,the theory of upholding people's expectations.Then,the writer gave her interpretation on the constitutional founding of the Parliamentary Ombudsman System from a triple perspective of the changing constitution,the accounting mechanism of the regulatory state and upholding constitutional values.The historical part of the thesis is composed of three chapters,which aims to reveal the establishment and the changing process of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System.In chapter three,the author explained the forming process of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System,analyzed the structure of The Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967,and revealed the background and the driving forces in the foregoing process.In chapter four,the writer first explained the standard of dividing historical stages,then investigated the first two stages(1967-1976,and 1977-1996)of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System in turn according to the logical structure of the personnel,the interpretation of annual reports,case study and the comment.In chapter five,the author first answered a preliminary question of'whether a new British constitution is forming',and analyzed the characteristics,the challenges and the innovative impetus of traditional British constitution,and gave a brief introduction to the changing of the constitution since 1997 in this sub-section.Then,the writer investigated the last two stages(1997-2006,and 2007-)of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System in turn according to the logical structure of chapter four.Chapter six is the conclusion.The author first reviewed a critical comment from the eighth parliamentary ombudsman(Ann Abraham),whose comment was based on a review of the legacy of Whyatt Report 1961,and analyzed the comments on the present arrangement,the unsolved questions and the future development from British parliamentary ombudsmen and scholars in this sub-section.Then,the writer deliberately summarized four experience in the establishing and changing process of the British Parliamentary Ombudsman System,and pointed out how British experience could be used in Chinese context.