Comparative Focus of The Nigeria Public Complaint Commission, The British Ombudsman and The Soviet Prosecutor-General

Abstract

Social scientists have for several decades recognized complaining as a major form of political participation. Whichever way it is perceived, citizens’ complaints and redress of their grievances evidently have a critical impact on modern day government. The ever increasing size, activities, and the danger of unresponsiveness of modern government, call for a balancing force to protect the individual rights and maintain the citizens’ control over their government. This is the whole essence of the institution of the Ombudsman which has become a feature and standard of the modern democratic State. Headed by a high level public official with integrity and presumable independent authority to oversee complaints arising from public administration, the institution stands as a check against abuse of the public offices and protection of the citizens’ rights. The objective of this paper therefore, is to do a comparative analysis of the institution in Nigeria, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union (Russia). We adopted the doctrinal method of legal research in this work, wherein the laws of these countries under study were used as our primary sources of data, and opinions of authors on the subject matter expressed in text books and journal articles, as our secondary sources of data. Applying the Utilitarian theory, the Ombudsman promotes peace and happiness when it makes the right recommendations and produces the reverse to happiness when it makes the wrong recommendations. It is our finding that there is reasonable similarity in traditional role of the institution among these countries, with a handful of differences. It is also our finding that some of the challenges bedeviling the institution are influenced by the political authorities in these countries and non-enforcement of the decision of the Ombudsman. In the light of the above, it was recommended, among other things, that in order not to render the institution as a toothless bull dog that can only bark but cannot bite, its decisions should be made enforceable and binding on the parties. We also emphasized that in a State where the Ombudsman is functional with total independence, the institution will play a major role in curbing corruption, safeguarding human rights and assisting citizens to get redress in cases of maladministration by government officials