The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday, on a proposal from the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the royal decree that creates the Ombudsman for Victims of Collective Transport Accidents, a stable and permanent figure tasked with coordinating care for those affected and their family members.
Its work will provide continuity of assistance following an accident, also in the medium and long term, when emergency devices have already been deactivated. The objective is to guarantee psychological, social and legal support and to protect the rights, dignity and needs of the victims.
The Ombudsman will have the rank of undersecretary and will be a differentiated figure within the Ministry. This institutional position will enable it to coordinate actions, request information, demand responses from other bodies, and supervise compliance with its commitments.
A proposal for regulatory reform in three months
The royal decree incorporates the mission put forward by the associations: to ensure effective protection for victims and their family members, access to information, comprehensive care, and the support and monitoring of the processes arising from accidents.
Within three months from its appointment, the Ombudsman will present, with the participation of these associations, a project to improve the regulatory framework for victim care.
The proposal will address the institutional structure of assistance and the formulas for collaboration between administrations and entities. It will also make it possible to incorporate lessons from recent and previous accidents in the different modes of transport and to study the issues that require a rule with the force of law.
The associations will participate actively, in an advisory capacity, and on an ongoing basis in all of the Ombudsman’s functions through a working group.
In what accidents it may intervene
The scope of action will include accidents involving collective transport of passengers that are of state ownership or state competence: rail, commercial aviation, passenger maritime transport, and bus.
Its intervention may be extended to regional and local services through collaboration agreements with the competent administrations.
The regulation adopts a broad definition of victim. It includes people who have died, disappeared or been injured, but also those who suffer psychological harm, their family members and close associates, and those who depended on them, as long as the accident directly affects them.
Information, advice and coordination of assistance
The Ombudsman’s functions are divided into ten blocks. Among its main tasks will be to act as the point of contact for victims and their families before the administrations, bodies and entities involved.
It will also establish a common framework to coordinate the response, provide clear information and maintain the advice. It will take part in the preparation of assistance protocols, with special attention to vulnerable people.
The guidance will include victims’ rights and the avenues to exercise them, the available assistance, claims for damages, access to free legal aid, and economic rights. It will also provide emotional and therapeutic support.
The Ombudsman may require the necessary information from bodies, agencies and administrations to carry out its work and will collaborate with victims’ associations and other institutions dedicated to their care.
Reports on care and good information practices
Among its transparency and accountability obligations, there will be the preparation of reports on the assistance provided at each accident and the claims received.
In addition, it will prepare with the media associations a code of good practices for the ethical treatment of information about these incidents.
The new figure will cooperate in particular with the Independent Administrative Authority for the Technical Investigation of Accidents and Incidents (AITAT), respecting its independence.
How the Victims’ Ombudsman will be organized
The Ombudsman will be appointed by Royal Decree of the Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.
It will have an Ombudsman’s Office, with the rank of General Directorate, which will provide technical support and from which a General Secretariat and a Deputy General Directorate for Victim Care will depend. It will also have a Technical Office, with the rank of deputy general directorate, for its direct advisory role.
The new figure will not replace other bodies. It will respect the independence of the AITAT, the function of the judicial bodies and the autonomous and municipal competences in health, social services and transport. Its actions in these areas will be carried out through cooperation instruments between administrations.