It is interesting to hear that the Tajik government is to establish a position of Ombudsman who is going to protect the rights of Tajik citizens. Emomali Rahmon made this public in his annual address to the Parliament on April 30. NBCental Asia reports that Rahmon said that “as a democratic institution, this structure will consolidate relations and cooperation between state agencies and civil society.”

Many experts argue it will not be an effective tool for protection of human rights. I also think that the effectiveness of this institution is full of doubts. Simply creating a position of Ombudsman in an authoritarian country will not make the citizens feel safer. The rights of citizens must be protected by the state but not only by an ombudsman.

The experience of other Central Asian countries shows that the governments do not pay much attention to the reports of Ombudsmans and in fact this position is not influential in these countries. It would be strange to say but I think that Ombudsman is effective only in democratic countries, where his reports and investigations are taken for serious.

Lilia Zakharieva, the UN advisor on human rights, says the High Commissioner’s office supports the idea of having an ombudsman provided it corresponds to the “Paris principles” – criteria for institutional independence set out by a resolution of the UN General Assembly.

“Under these criteria, the institution should not be administratively accountable to any organisation except parliament. It should be answerable to a collective body, and its budget should be decided by parliament,” she said.

The Ombudsman in Tajikistan will not be independent and consequently not effective simply because it will be accountable to the body which is not independent itself. This position is created only for the international community to show the process of democratic development which in fact is not really a process.