Title | The ‘Ombuds Watchers’: Collective Dissent and Legal Protest Among Users of Public Services Ombuds |
---|
Type | Journal article |
---|
Authors | Gill, C. and Creutzfeldt, N. |
---|
Abstract | This article examines the phenomenon of the ‘ombuds watchers’. These are groups of dissatisfied users of public service ombuds schemes who engage in legal protest against the current system of redress for citizen-state complaints. Through the lens of legal consciousness scholarship we propose a framework that conceptualizes the collectivized protest of the ombuds watchers. Based on an empirical dataset, our analysis has shown that the ombuds watchers meet each of the defining characteristics of dissenting collectivism and demonstrates the existence of forms of legal consciousness which present ‘opportunities to build alternative imaginaries and institutions’ (Morgan and Kutch 2015, p. 567). Our case study provides an insight into the potential for dissenting collectives to challenge the hegemonic structures of state law, while at the same time emphasising the continuing power of legal ideology in shaping popular understandings of justice. The article also suggests a pathway for future empirical research into ombuds. |
---|
Keywords | Legal protest, legal consciousness, collective dissent, ombuds, user experience of justice systems, informality, inquisitorial processes, procedural justice |
---|
Journal | Social and Legal Studies |
---|
Journal citation | 27 (3), pp. 367-388 |
---|
ISSN | 0964-6639 |
---|
Year | 2018 |
---|
Publisher | Sage |
---|
Accepted author manuscript | File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
---|
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663917721313 |
---|
Web address (URL) | http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85043568375&partnerID=MN8TOARS |
---|
Publication dates |
---|
Published in print | 2018 |
---|
Published online | 11 Aug 2017 |
---|
ISBN | 14617390 09646639 |
---|