Transparency: a material hat unleashes a two-year authorized battle between the Interior and a Civil Guard union


The Transparency Council has pressured the Interior, after two years of appeals, to ship the info on the tender for the pledge, to which the division of Grande-Marlaska had refused. Interior rejected Transparency’s request understanding that the signatory was a commerce unionist The pressure started as a result of the AUGC warned that the clothes that the Civil Guard was planning to purchase for greater than 100,000 euros, of their opinion, weren’t regulatory

On paper, the authorized battle appears to give attention to a bit of material measuring simply over half a sq. meter. A cap that the Civil Guard wished to purchase and about which the unions of the physique claimed that it was not regulatory again in 2022. However, the error truly has far more delicate overtones. Does the Interior have the proper to disclaim details about a public contract? And if the particular person requesting it’s liable for a union of civil servants? And much more: Is it authorized for Frenando Grande-Marlaska’s portfolio to seek the advice of its databases to search out out if a public info requester is amongst its staff or if it should use the data it claims in a vital means with the ministry? And all, with the excuse of a garment that ought to serve to cowl the heads of the brokers, and that has two years of papers, sources and places of work on its again.

The mess began in September 2022, when the Permanent Uniformity Board determined to vary the rules to make a brand new cap official for the Civil Guard Prosecutor and Borders staff. At that point, the Unified Association of the Civil Guard (AUGC) claimed that this physique didn’t have the authorized energy to make the change, but in addition famous that even though the caps weren’t but authorized, there was already an organization that offered them. The whole price of the acquisition exceeded 100,000 euros. Money that the union most popular to put money into bulletproof vests and different safety measures.

Then the paper combat began, when the AUGC realized that earlier than that enormous order there was a primary earlier contract for a a lot smaller quantity, of which it was unaware. They requested the info of that first contract, however the course of the Civil Guard refused. So one in all its members opened the Transparency Portal and submitted a request for public info to search out out the quantity of that first contract. The dance began.

The path of the Cap-Gate leaves proof of the need of the Administration’s Transparency, and extra particularly, of the Grande-Marlaska portfolio, which after delaying the choice, refused in a primary and a second choice to ship the info. And that it’s a public contract and that the info doesn’t have an effect on National Security in any means. They are material caps, not state-of-the-art army expertise.

“Why have been these recordsdata accessed”

From the outset, Interior refused to offer the info as a result of the occasion, the one that signed the papers, “has the standing of consultant of an expert affiliation of the Civil Guard.” That is to say: that in line with the argument of the division of Grande-Marlaska, the proper that each citizen has to request public info doesn’t apply to the union members of the Civil Guard.

From a technical perspective, the Transparency Law is known because the regulatory laws to entry public information supplied that there’s not, additionally with the rank of Law, one other authorized textual content that contemplates particular or sectoral rules, such because the Secrets Law. officers. What the Interior claimed so as to not present the info is that this petitioner was a member of the AUGC, a commerce unionist, and subsequently needed to seek the advice of the info by way of the inner rules of the Civil Guard for these circumstances. But the Transparency Council doesn’t agree with him, remembering that this inner regulation doesn’t have the pressure of Law, and that the Transparency Law displays “the proper of all individuals to entry public info”, whether or not or not they’re officers of the State.

In its refusal to offer the info, Interior even acknowledged that “there may be, subsequently, a transparent and clear presumption that the request for info requested is linked to the efficient train of the applicant’s consultant capabilities.” […] That is why it appears extra acceptable that they be given the chance to acquire essentially the most related and intensive info for it, on this case utilizing the precise route “of the inner rules of the Civil Guard.

The Transparency resolution

A citizen requested for the info. The Civil Guard refused at hand them over. The petitioner and commerce unionist appealed once more, and Interior refused once more. In his attraction, the applicant puzzled what proper the Interior had accessed the databases it maintains on officers to substantiate that his title was on the Civil Guard workers, in a component that the opinion issued later by Transparency doesn’t attempt to detailed means.

In his attraction, the petitioner additionally requests explanations of “for what cause these recordsdata have been accessed to certify my standing as consultant, when I’ve by no means made reference to my standing as consultant in my request for entry. The Civil Guard a part of a severe mistake. This half requests the info like all citizen, identical to my spouse or every other particular person can request it. International treaties on Transparency, lots of them signed by Spain, often have two elementary premises: that the Administration can’t ask the citizen who workouts his proper what he desires the info for and that it doesn’t perform inquiries geared toward discovering his intention concerning them. The free train of this proper, which is, in spite of everything, yet another management factor of those establishments, implies that nobody within the Administration can query the rationale for which it’s exercised.

In its opinion final February, after refusals from the Interior, the Transparency Council agreed with the petitioner and indicated that nobody ceases to have the proper to request public info below the Transparency Law for being a Guard agent. Civilian or union consultant.

But though it could appear stunning, the case doesn’t finish right here. Now, Transparency forces Interior to ship the info or go to courtroom. But in line with the petitioners, the data has not arrived both. The ministry first despatched the info, however from the second contract, not from the primary. Then he despatched a second hyperlink, the place the primary contract doesn’t seem intimately both. So the petitioner, after two years of tug-of-war, is, because the saying goes, fed up for a very long time.

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