Advocacy Introduction Often a useless affair We previously listed the advocacy correspondence received from organizations like the European Committee on Romani Emacipation. You can still access this list by clicking here. But in reality the responses received from institutions such as the European Commission, the European Petitions Committee and even the EU Parliamentary Ombudsman were all an insult to the intellect. They consisted of mildly-worded documents, emails and letters which reflect an underlying aggression and intent not to assist and indeed to become part of the problem, even when this meant breaking their own mandates, regulations and European Law. Since they have established themselves as the final arbiters on such matters they therefore feel that they are in a strong position. This ability to manipulate exists as long as civil servants can hide behind ill-understod regulations or can try and pass the buck through less than transparent mumbo jumbo which surprizingly many people accept. We will be restructing this section to become more analytical and in particular we will follow the European Human Rights Tribunal (see footnote 1) advice and redraft our analyses in terms of the personal responsibility of corresponding individuals be they staff, managers or politicians. This approach helps reduce the prejudicial prevariaction which is maintained by individuals hiding behind a veil of "institutional protection" or "secrecy". Thus if an individual tries to lever the power of an institution to secure or sustain a situation (by not acting) of failing to defend individual freedom, through a non observation of law, then the individual doing this is directly and personally liable for this failure to act with intent. We will be assisted in this work by the EHRT and Emancipation. The European Committee on Romani Emancipation (ECRE) is also re-aligning its advocacy approach along the lines proposed by the EHRT. According to ECRE this approach would seem to place more control and weight on the side of those requiring change and it can significantly weaken the institutional process of prevarication and of responsible individuals hiding behind various institutional devices. Footnote 1: The EHRT-European Human Rights Tribunal ( http://www.ehrt.org ) is characterised by: no political party appointed judges complete impartiality the use of juries to prevent arbitrary decisions use is made of realistically assessed tort damage where appropriate emphasis is given to individual decision-maker responsibility and liability only relates to European Union member states The EHRT should not be confused with the ECHR, the European Court on Human Rights. The ECHR is characterised by: many political party appointed judges (some from countries with disastrous track records in human rights) several judges fail even the most basic tests of impartiality proscribes any role for the community conscience by not making any use of juries with no juries arbitrary and unjust decisions are likely errs on the side of lightweight and often unrealistic awards it is not an institution of the European Union