1. Provedoria dos Direitos Humanos e Justiça Brief overview of work priorities over the past year Presentation prepared for the 21st Annual Meeting of the Asia Pacific Forum
Silverio Pinto Baptista
Provedor
Provedoria dos Direitos Humanos e Justiça
Bangkok, October 2016.

2. I. Introduction

3. II. Mandate of the Provedoria dos Direitos Humanos e Justiça (Ombudsman for Human Rights and Justice)
Legal basis:
Constitution of RDTL, Art. 27: The Ombudsman shall be an independent organ in charge of examining and seeking to settle citizens’ complaints against public bodies, certifying the conformity of the acts with the law, preventing and initiating the whole process to remedy injustice.
Dual mandate: PDHJ Statutes in Law 7/2004 establish that the duty of the PDHJ is to promote and protect human rights and to promote good governance

4. Overview Important issues throughout the past year include:
Revision and implementation of organic law
Publication of monitoring reports
Continuation of decentralization of services from the national office to the regional offices
Contribution to international bodies including UN treaty bodies and regional organizations such as APF, SEANF, IOI

5. Revision and implementation of organic law
2014 APF capacity assessment recommendation: Organic law should be functional rather than just be following the mandate
Previously: activities separated by mandate (human rights and good governance)
Currently: activities separated by technical area (monitoring, investigations, promotion)
New organic law promulgated on 13 July 2016

6. Publication of monitoring reports
Monitoring of detention facilities
Monitoring of prisons
Monitoring of the Timor-Leste government’s school feeding project
Monitoring of distribution of medicines
Monitoring of SISCa (Integrated Community Health Services)
Monitoring of infrastructure projects in autonomous region of Oecusse
Monitoring of the Joint Operation in Baucau region

8. Decentralization of services from the national office to the regional offices
Monitoring of human rights and good governance issues
Investigations into citizens’ complaints on human rights and good governance issues
Awareness raising sessions to educate citizens and public officials about the PDHJ mandate, human rights and good governance

9. Same
Oecusse
Baucau
Maliana

10. International cooperation
APF training on several topics attended by four staff
13th Annual Meeting of SEANF in Myanmar in September 2016
Cooperation with KOMNAS HAM for the reunification of children that went missing during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste and succeeded in unifying 12 people with their families.
Three training sessions conducted with KOMNAS HAM as part of a bilateral agreement in September 2016
UPR session on Timor-Leste in Geneva in October 2016

11. Obrigado wain