How Kadi Inspired Ombudsman

Abû Zayd pleads before the Qadi of Ma'arra (1334). 


Charles XII discovered Kadi[1] institution  as the basis of Ombudsman while in forced exile. In the Ottoman Empire, qadis were appointed by the Veliyu l-Emr. With the reform movements, secular courts have replaced qadis, but they formerly held wide ranging responsibilities: ... During Ottoman period, [qadi] was responsible for the city services. The charged people such as Subasi, Bocekbasi, Copluk Subasisi, Mimarbasi and Police assisted the qadi, who coordinated all the services." [From History of Istanbul Municipality, Istanbul Municipality (in Turkish).] 

 In the Ottoman Empire, a Kadiluk – the district covered by a kadı – was an administrative subdivision, smaller than a Sanjak.A kadı was an official in the Ottoman Empire. Based on the Islamic concept of a judge (Arabic: قاضي‎ qāḍī), the Ottoman official also had extra duties; they performed local administrative tasks, and they were involved in taxation and conscription. They might even appeal matters of taxation to central authority; around 1718 the kadı of Janjevo complained to Istanbul that the local lord had set the ispence tax at 80 akçes, rather than official rate of 32.[2] A kadı‍ '​s territory was called a kadiluk; there could be several kadiluks in a province (sanjak). Each sub-province or kaza, governed by a kaymakam, had a kadı (though not every kadı was assigned to one kaza, and the boundaries would shift over time). 

As the Empire expanded, so did the legal complexities that were built into the system of administration carried over and were enhanced by the conditions of frontier expansion. In particular, the Islamic empire adapted legal devices to deal with the existence of large populations of non-Muslims, a persistent feature of empire despite incentives for conversion and in part because of institutional protections for communal legal forums. These aspects of the Islamic legal order would have been quite familiar to travelers from other parts of the world. Indeed, Jewish, Armenian, and Christian traders found institutional continuity across Islamic and Western regions, negotiating for and adopting strategies to enhance this resemblance.

Mavi Boncuk | 

A prototype of ombudsmen may have flourished in China during the Qin Dynasty (221 BC), and in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. The position of secret royal inspector, or Amhaeng-eosa (암행어사, 暗行御史) was unique to the Joseon Dynasty, where an undercover official directly appointed by the king was sent to local provinces to monitor government officials and look after the populace while travelling incognito. The Roman Tribune had some similar roles, with power to veto acts that infringed upon the Plebeians. Another precursor to the ombudsman was the Turkish Diwan-al-Mazalim which appears to go back to the second caliph, Umar (634–644) and the concept of Qadi al-Qadat. 

An indigenous Swedish, Danish and Norwegian term, ombudsman is etymologically rooted in the Old Norse word umboðsmaðr, essentially meaning "representative" (with the word umbud/ombud meaning proxy, attorney, that is someone who is authorized to act for someone else, a meaning it still has in the Scandinavian languages). The first preserved use is in Sweden. In the Danish Law of Jutland from 1241, the term is umbozman and means a royal civil servant in a hundred. From 1552, it is also used in the other Scandinavian languages such as the both Icelandic and Faroese umboðsmaður, the Norwegian ombudsmann and the Danish ombudsmand. The Swedish speaking minority in Finland uses the Swedish terminology.

Use of the term began in Sweden, with the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman instituted by the Instrument of Government of 1809, to safeguard the rights of citizens by establishing a supervisory agency independent of the executive branch. The predecessor of the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman was the Office of Supreme Ombudsman ("Högste Ombudsmannen"), which was established by the Swedish King, Charles XII, in 1713. Charles XII was in exile in Turkey and needed a representative in Sweden to ensure that judges and civil servants acted in accordance with the laws and with their duties. If they did not do so, the Supreme Ombudsman had the right to prosecute them for negligence. In 1719 the Swedish Office of Supreme Ombudsman became the Chancellor of Justice. The Parliamentary Ombudsman was established in 1809 by the Swedish Riksdag, as a parallel institution to the still-present Chancellor of Justice, reflecting the concept of separation of powers as developed by Montesquieu.

[1]A qadi (/ˈkɑːdi, ˈkeɪ-/; also known as qaadi, qaadee, qazi, kazi, quazi, kadi or kadı) (Arabic: قاضي‎ qāḍī) is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law (sharia), appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims. The judgment of a qadi must be based on ijmah, the prevailing consensus of the Islamic scholars (ulema). The origin of the institution of qadi is the old Arab arbitrator, the Hakam, but qualities from officials in areas conquered by Arabs have been added to the structure.