Defender of the People (Defensor del Pueblo) under the Spanish Constitution of 1978 shows us one of the most recent models of the contemporary Ombudsman system. He/She plays not only the role of a traditional Commissioner of Parliament that supervises public administration, but also that of the protector of constitutional rights and freedoms. In addition, he/she serves as the prosecutor that denounces laws as unconstitutional before the Constitutional Court. This paper refers to the figure of the Defender in the context of the present system of protection of constitutional rights and freedoms, and analyzes what it means today.
