DID YOU KNOW?
An ombudsman is an official, usually but not always appointed by the government, who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens. The modern meaning arose from its use in Sweden with the Parliamentary Ombudsman instituted in 1809 to safeguard the rights of citizens by establishing a supervisory agency independent of the executive branch. The word ombudsman is not gender specific. Its specific meaning has since been adopted into English as well as other languages, and ombudsmen have been instituted by many other governments and organisations. The origin of the word is found in Old Norse and the word umbuds man, meaning representative. The first preserved use in Swedish is from 1552. It is also used in the other Scandinavian languages such as the Icelandic umboosmaour, the Norwegian ombudsman and the Danish ombudsmand.
[From the November 2005 edition of the Ombudsman (British and Irish Ombudsman Association newsletter). Information for the article was sourced from Wikepedia, the free Internet encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org]
