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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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 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

8. 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

9. 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 , 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