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Finland's first ever Ombudsman for Minorities Mikko Puumalainen believes in the rule of law and in cultural encounter as part of everyday life in Finland.
"From day one I have received a great many communications and a steady flow of documents has passed before my eyes. Certain matters have already come to light that I would like to tackle," he says, but declines to go into details at this stage. As a lawyer Mikko Puumalainen likes to make sure that matters are carefully prepared before they are made public. He explains his official profile in the following terms:
"When I have something important to say, then I shall seek greater visibility. I don't think there's much point in formulating vague positions. The main substance of this job is credibility, because it doesn't involve very much by way of formal powers."
Mikko Puumalainen began his five-year term as Ombudsman for Minorities at the start of the year, and has only now begun to come to grips with the challenges awaiting him in his new position.
The duties and powers of the Ombudsman for Minorities are separately specified by law and are thereby binding on all public authorities. The Ombudsman for Minorities will continue to perform the supervisory functions of the previous Ombudsman for Foreigners, but the field of work has now expanded. Where the Ombudsman for Foreigners focused on supervising the rights of foreigners in Finland, the function of the new Ombudsman for Minorities is also to ensure that everyone in the country, whether foreigner or Finn, is treated equitably regardless of ethnic origin.
Mikko Puumalainen feels that this statutory principle provides an effective anchor for his work: "Implementing the constitutional right to equity is the business of every public authority. The challenge of my job lies in how well I manage to get others to do the same work."
"I would like to stress that there is a certain professionalism involved in implementing the principle of equity. It is quite simply unprofessional conduct on the part of service providers for the clients of administrative and other public authorities to suffer discriminatory or otherwise improper service."
In contrast to the duties of his predecessor, the new Ombudsman for Minorities must also monitor and improve the situation of ethnic minorities that have been in Finland for very many years. The UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) has called attention to the status of minority population groups such as the Roma and Sámi in Finland.
Mikko Puumalainen promises that the long-established minorities will get their fair share of attention in the work of his office. So far it is too early to say how this will be achieved or what issues will come to the fore in relation to these groups.
Most of the contacts made with the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities result in referring the client, for example, to the next stage of an appeal process. In some cases, however, the Ombudsman will contact other public authorities and request a separate explanation of the matter.
The law gives the Ombudsman for Minorities quite extensive powers to obtain information, including confidential information. It also stipulates a reporting obligation, meaning that the Ombudsman for Minorities may initiate a procedure concerning ethnic discrimination at another public authority, which must then notify the Ombudsman for Minorities of all measures taken in the matter.
"I consider the right to information to be highly significant, because openness even between public authorities is a very effective means of influencing matters," Mikko Puumalainen observes.
Another reason why client contacts and legal actions will be an important part of the job description of the Ombudsman for Minorities is that they provide effective contact with the field of work. Mikko Puumalainen feels that it will be important to the success of his office that it retains its independence from both public authorities and ethnic minority stakeholders.
"My job is to provide credible representation for all ethnic minorities, including those that are unable to be active and adopt a high public profile. This means that it will be essential to secure a good grasp of the overall situation and to formulate our own priorities."
Where client service is concerned the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities will seek to arrange matters so that meetings are based on prior contact by telephone or otherwise. "The aim is not to undermine the standard of client service, however, and Mikko Puumalainen promises that "it will still be possible to come into the office spontaneously and state your case."
By the coming summer the staff of the Office will include two new assisting officials appointed to join the two who were carried over from the Office of the Ombudsman for Foreigners. An advisory board for minority affairs, comprising representatives of various public authorities and organisations, will be formed to assist the Ombudsman.
The European Union "Racism Directive" prohibiting ethnic discrimination requires each of the EU Member States to appoint a body to monitor and control discrimination and to report in this area to the national government and to the European Union. The Directive has yet to be implemented at national level in Finland.
One approach to this implementation would be to assign the monitoring function to the Ombudsman for Minorities. In any case the very existence of a Ombudsman for Minorities will inevitably lead to a general improvement in monitoring and research into racism, ethnic discrimination and racially motivated crime. Mikko Puumalainen stresses the importance of this aspect of his work:
"Until now we have been working with disjointed and rather inadequate information. These matters have not been monitored systematically from one year to the next, even though such monitoring would already be essential simply for the purpose of guiding legislation."
Besides official monitoring, the new Ombudsman feels that victim research will provide an effective means of assessing the true scale of racism and discrimination in Finland. Puumalainen is also ready to concede that further information in this field may reveal a need for further reviews of legislation.
"Are people adequately protected from racism? To what extent do racist offences come to the notice of public authorities and the courts? These are issues that we shall have to consider with the greatest care."
The statutory function of the Ombudsman for Minorities is to promote good ethnic relations between various population groups. Attitude research indicates that there is widespread prejudice and discrimination in Finnish society based on racial and ethnic extraction, religion and political or other conviction.
The challenging role of the Ombudsman for Minorities under these circumstances is to influence public opinion and serve as a bridge builder. This, in turn, will require the Ombudsman to maintain contact with a wide diversity of elements in society. Mikko Puumalainen is ready to tackle the challenging assignment of encouraging ethnic minorities to organise in defence of their own interests:
"I shall seek to address any inadequacies in Finland's legislation, administration or resource allocation that obstruct endeavours of this kind. I would also like to promote minority access to the system of democratic government and the work of political parties," Puumalainen says.
The Ombudsman will also be making overtures to employers' federations, trade unions and businesses, because to a very great extent it is in their hands how equality in the working life will be realised on the shop floor:
"Although issues of discrimination in working life fall within the province of the labour protection authorities, I think I must also have a role to play in this area. There is still a general attitude suggesting that representatives of minority cultures - be they schoolchildren, students or employees - should be viewed as cost factors to be borne, rather than assets to be developed. Hopefully this situation will normalise over time and cultural diversity will come to be understood as an important resource."
Mikko Puumalainen points out that in just a few short years immigrants have effected some radical changes at street level in Finland, for example in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and this evolution looks set to continue. According to the latest population projections by Statistics Finland, it is estimated that the country will have a net migration inflow of about 5,000 people a year until at least the year 2050. In other words, about 5,000 more people will come to live in Finland than leave the country to live elsewhere.
So what will the ideal Finland be like in the year 2050 according to the new Ombudsman for Minorities Mikko Puumalainen?
"It will be a place where a person can get service, for example in a shop or from a public authority from someone of differing cultural background or skin colour without either party paying much attention to this aspect of the transaction," Puumalainen responds.
Indeed the job of the Ombudsman for Minorities boils down to the simple issue of equity between individuals of all kinds.
Mikko Puumalainen is a 40 year-old married man with three children. He is a lawyer by training, having completed a licentiate in law and training on the civil and criminal bench in Finland, and a master's degree in law at the University of London.
Though still a young man, Mikko Puumalainen has performed nearly 20 years of public service during his working career to date. He has been a writ server and district police superintendent, and held the office of legislative draftsman at the Ministry of Justice from the end of the 1980s until 1996, when he transferred to the Finnish permanent mission to the European Union in Brussels. After two years in Belgium, he returned to Finland to take up a civil service appointment at the Office of the Prime Minister.
Mikko Puumalainen was heavily involved in preparing the programme for the Finnish Presidency of the European Union, and particularly the Tampere Meeting of the European Council on Justice and Home Affairs. Following the presidential term he served at the EU secretariat that co-ordinates Finland's European Union policy at the Council of State. In this capacity his duties included preparing the Treaty of Nice and the government report on the future of the European Union that was submitted to Parliament last autumn.
Mikko Puumalainen has also worked in refugee affairs. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he served for a couple of years as a part-time lawyer at the Refugee Advice Centre, just when the first large group of asylum-seekers arrived in Finland. He also served as a member of the Asylum Appeals Board from 1991 to 1995.
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