Statutory participatory mechanisms - legal structures facilitating social inclusion in Finland Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Participatory mechanisms Independent bodies created by law Attached to different Ministries and chaired by Ombudspersons or civil servants Tasked to: Promote interaction and co-operation between stakeholders; Provide expertise; Make initiatives and issue statements; Raise awareness and facilitate understanding between the relevant actors Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Structured participation - the statutory participatory mechanisms in place in Finland The National Council on Disability The National Council on Civil Society Policies The Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations The Advisory Board on the Language Act The Advisory Board for the Ombudsman for Children The Advisory Board on Romani Affairs The Advisory Board on Senior Citizens and Pension Affairs The Advisory Council for Youth Affairs The Non-Discrimination Tribunal Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Challenges identified The participatory bodies are developed to answer to identified challenges Challenges remain: How to prevent discrimination in all policy areas; How to take into account emerging issues such as multiple discrimination? How to keep the participation structures sufficiently flexible? The participation of groups with no statutory participatory body? How to further develop networking between the bodies and their members? How to clearly define the mandate? How to best facilitate participation and inclusion at the regional and local levels? Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Lessons learned: participatory mechanisms facilitate social inclusion The Finnish experience: permanent participatory mechanisms facilitate participation and supervision of human rights obligations, as well as provide guidance to decision-makers Require effective legislation, with provisions on impact assessment Political will and leadership Allocation of resources Provide a systematic, long-term approach to combat discrimination in all policies - mainstreaming Enable awareness-raising and genuine dialogue Non-governmental organisations’ participation supported from the beginning International co-operation Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Lessons learned: participatory mechanisms in facilitating social inclusion Other influence-making and inclusion mechanisms remain necessary: Hearings of a broad scale on e.g. legislative and policy measures: Various client groups / NGOs are consulted at the preparatory stages of legislation The aim is to gain knowledge on possible challenges to draft legislation at an early stage of the preparation process Hearings are organised on draft periodic reports to international monitoring bodies Roundtables, seminars, workshops etc. Help interaction with smaller and local actors, who are not members of the statutory participatory bodies On-line participation: permits the participation of individual citizens from outside the statutory structures Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Latest developments: the Non-Discrimination Tribunal In line with the new Non-Discrimination Act, the Non-Discrimination Tribunal replaced the National Discrimination Tribunal and the Equality Board from 1.1.2015 onwards Brings together the significant actors for combatting discrimination The mandate covers all discrimination grounds Various ombudspersons and their offices have been transferred under the administrative branch of the Ministry of Justice. The aim was to support the general development of fundamental rights, facilitiate closer cooperation in supervisory tasks, communications, as well as the cooperation with interest groups. The common administrative basis is hoped to facilitate possibilities to address multiple discrimination Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

A facilitator of information sharing - the Human Rights Delegation Active since 2012, the Human Rights Centre is an independent expert institution tasked to promote the implementation of human rights, as well as to increase cooperation and exchange of information. The Human Rights Centre has a 20 to 40-member Human Rights Delegation. The Delegation brings together the various human rights actors; A cooperative body, which helps to share information; Deals with human rights issues of a far-reaching significance. Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs

Need for further improvements: a study on national human rights actors A Government network of fundamental and human rights actors has coordinated the implementation of fundamental and human rights within the Government in cooperation with NGOs; On 22.5.2015, a study on the position, division of work and resources of the national human rights actors was published. The study covered the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice, the Human Rights Center, special ombudspersons, certain participatory bodies and the Government’s Network for Fundamental Rights and human rights actors. The working group recommends that the recommendations received from various international monitoring mechanisms should be seen as a tool for the furthering of human rights work. Participation by NGOs and private actors should be strengthened further and the efficiency of the work further improved. Martina Törnkvist Senior Officer for Legal Affairs