In Quest of the Ombudsman in the Mediterranean Area

Abstract

The Mediterranean culture is not favorable to Ombudsmen. Israel alone, of the states within this area, has an officer, the State Comptroller, with functions similar to those of an Ombudsman. The Tribunis Plebis of republican Rome performed as a quasi-Ombudsman. But he lost this function during the Empire, and, consequently, it was not part of the Roman tradition bequeathed to the Middle Ages. The French system of administrative justice—or copies of it in force in various states of this area, except Israel—affords some of the protection furnished by an Ombudsman. Extra-legal, and not infrequently illegal, protection is obtained through the client-patron relationship between the politically weak and the politically potent, which is a long-standing Mediterranean tradition.