About Marie Anderson
Marie is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, and qualified as a solicitor in 1985. After qualifying she worked in private practice for several years in the area of civil litigation. Thereafter, she joined the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and worked as Legal Assistant and Senior Legal Assistant, over a period totaling 17 years. The focus of her work was public, information and human rights law.
Marie became the first Assistant Information Commissioner for Northern Ireland in April 2003 and was responsible for setting up the first ever regional office of the Information Commission in Belfast in September 2003. She held this post for 5 years with responsibility for regulating data protection and freedom of information matters in Northern Ireland. During that time Marie was responsible for the investigation of highly sensitive information cases, and for establishing precedent in cases relating to privacy, the law of confidentiality and commercially sensitive information.
Marie was Deputy Northern Ireland Ombudsman from May 2009 and led the Ombudsman investigations examining complaints of maladministration and alleged breaches of the Local Government Code of Conduct for Councilors. From 2012 to 2016 Marie was Chair of the Ombudsman’s Association Legal Interest Group which comprises 26 lawyers from across the UK and ROI.
Marie took up her post as the first Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman on 1 April 2016 along with the extended jurisdictions of Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Ombudsman and Northern Ireland Local Government Commissioner for Complaints.