NHRI Leadership: an introductory guide In addition to these typical roles, the institution head can have specific roles provided in the NHRI’s founding law or by decisions of the commission. These roles vary from one NHRI to another. Under the founding law or commission decisions, the institution head could be designated to • be chief executive of the NHRI • allocate areas of work or specific programmes or projects to other commissioners • authorise all expenditure • authorise all public statements. In other founding laws, the commission as a whole exercises these powers. As the head of a multiple-member institution, the chief commissioner has the implicit role of forming the consensus among the group. This is a heavy and challenging responsibility as the effectiveness of the NHRI often depends on the extent of internal consensus among commissioners in relation to the institution’s policies, programmes and operations. In an ombuds-model institution, the ombudsperson holds all the authority of the institution under the establishing law. The ombudsperson determines how the institution is to operate and what it is to do. 2. The other statutory leaders The other statutory leaders are those specific positions named in the founding law. In commissionmodel institutions, they are the other commissioners. In ombuds-model institutions they may be specified deputy ombudspersons. The other statutory leaders could be appointed as generalists or some or all could be appointed as specialists, with specific statutory responsibilities for particular areas of human rights (such as children’s rights or indigenous rights or sex or race discrimination) or particular human rights functions (such as investigations, litigation or education) or particular regions of the country (such as remote areas or indigenous or minority areas). Even where the founding law provides for generalists, the chief commissioner or the commission collectively or the ombudsperson may allocate specific areas of responsibility to individual statutory leaders. Where, by law or internal allocation, individual leaders have individual areas of responsibility, they lead work in that area on behalf of the NHRI. In a commission-model NHRI, the commission will need to determine the scope of the responsibilities of individual commissioners – what they can decide individually within their areas of responsibility and what needs to be referred to the commission collectively for decision. Whether, in a commission-model NHRI, commissioners are generalists or specialists, they each have roles within the commission as a corporate body. They are equal members of the commission and share joint responsibility for the development of the NHRI’s vision and its strategic and operational plans and for monitoring, evaluating and reporting on the NHRI’s work. They also share the responsibility to contribute to consensus within the commission itself and the NHRI as a whole. This means that they have a responsibility to attend and participate fully in meetings of the commission and to accept and support decisions of the commission. 20