Daily issues are stuff of complaints
In 2003, the Citizen’s Advocate investigated a number of daily issues that are of crucial importance to people. Pensions, bonuses, planning violations, expropriations, violations of children’s rights and human ones, more generally, were cited as the most common causes for petitions to the ombudsman. Its 2003 report highlights cases of abuse of police power, while it underscored the ease with which police authorities released the names of those involved in particularly heinous crimes (e.g. child pornography). Typically, two press reports by Attica police headquarters named 21 people arrested for «trafficking in child pornography over the Internet.» A large number of economic migrants also appealed to the ombudsman, indicating the scale of immigration problems in Greece. For the third year running, the country is trying to complete the second attempt to legalize immigrants that entered Greece illegally. The Citizen’s Advocate has cited the requirement for two separate permits, one for residence and one for work, as an administrative stumbling block. Other malfunctions in the system are the queues at the border crossings during vacations and other legal provisions that render the situation of foreign workers in this country particularly oppressive, and are in contravention of their basic human rights.
