Decently different – once upon a time there was a project. In memory of Gombos Gábor. Ombudsman’s legal protection for the enforcement of the fundamental rights of people with disabilities.

This is a brief introduction to the institution of the Ombudsman, with its operational specificities and the particularities of thematic projects. The fundamental rights program was conducted using the elements of the ombudsman’s toolbox, based on a pre-planned concept and institutional experience.
Focus is on disability issues through the credible transmission of the Ombudsman. Instead of strict legal statements and language, this paper is based on the values of fundamental rights in an understandable way. Fundamental rights pillars: Right to life and human dignity; State obligation to protect and promote fundamental rights; No discrimination; Right to social participation and inclusion.
The program entitled Public life in a different way, related to the exercise of suffrage by people with disabilities, dealt with accessibility and access, the sometimes restrictive nature of guardianship in connection with suffrage.
Participants of the event signed the Memorandum issued by the Commissioner of Citizen’s Rights.
Another focus of the project was on privacy, particularly in the everyday lives of people with disabilities living under guardianship. Marianne Schulze, a human rights expert and then chair of the Austrian Implementation Committee of the UN Convention, was a distinguished guest at an event addressing these themes.
This short text emphasizes the significance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, particularly in relation to the institution of guardianship. On June 5, 2008, the Government submitted Bill No. T/5949 on the Civil Code to Parliament, which broke with the provisions of the former Civil Code on guardianship and legal capacity.
The final thematic meeting called From Residential Institutions to Places of Detention focused on the institutional care of people with disabilities in Hungary. It analyzed the anomalies of large-scale residential institutional structures and the “traps of total institutions” highlighted through a major ombudsman investigation. The findings are not only summarized from the constitutional perspectives of disability studies and ombudsman’s protection of rights, but also with regards to Gábor Gombos’ professional input.