Brno, June 7 (CTK) – The Czech Ombudsman’s Office has looked into 142 complaints against the bodies for social and legal protection of children (OSPOD) in the past two years and has found mistakes in 77 cases (54 percent), Ombudsman Anna Sabatova told reporters yesterday.
However, Petra Suplerova, head of the family and healthcare section, pointed out that the figures cannot be generalised.
The Ombudsman’s Office does not monitor the work of the OSPOD in the whole Czech Republic, but it only deals with complaints against its work filed by parents or other possible persons, Suplerova said.
Sabatova added that after being warned of the mistakes, the bodies had admitted them and redressed the situation if it were possible.
“We assess the overall cooperation with the OSPOD positively,” Sabatova said.
Most cases (22 percent) concerned the passivity of the OSPOD. “Its workers do not do what they are obliged to under law and do not intervene in favour of the child,” Sabatova said.
In 21 percent of the cases, the OSPOD neglected its work with the family, which means it did not try to make the parents solve mutual conflicts and did not order them to use professional care.
In 11 percent of cases, the OSPOD did not use all social work tools before taking a child from the biological family.
Other mistakes were exceeding powers, for instance, by restricting contacts with parents without a court decision in this respect, said lawyer Klara Ille, from the Ombudsman’s Office.
In 6 percent of cases, the Ombudsman’s Office found out that a child was in institutional care unnecessarily long or siblings were separated there without a reason.
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