Access Info Europe-Spain’s Supreme Court 0-1 on the scoreboard
A Supreme Court ruling calls for NGO-Access Info Europe to cough up €3000 in legal costs to the Spanish government for requesting information about the country's anti-corruption measures.
With this fine, the Justice Ministry puts an end to this court case based on an information request submitted by the NGO in 2007. Access Info Europe wanted to know what the Ministry of Justice had done to implement the UN Convention against Corruption and the OECD Anti-bribery Convention.
Their request was never answered. According to Access Info Europe, when issuing the sentence, the Supreme Court argued that requesting the data amounted to demanding explanations and that was not considered as a simple request of information.
Enrique Jaramillo, the NGO's legal representative, says "The Ministry of Justice never answered Access Info Europe's request for data which it needed for its work, which forced the NGO to turn to the courts, a slow and costly process...The Supreme Court decision recognises that the administration failed to answer the initial request but nevertheless has condemned the NGO which challenged this administrative silence to pay the costs of taking the case," adding that "the risk of paying such costs is a massive disincentive for an ordinary citizen who will be unlikely to challenge the failure to respond to an information requests."
According the NGO's research, "at least 50 per cent" of all administrative procedures in Spain are out of the public's reach.
"This is a remarkable situation in a country which is telling the international community that it is making an effort to improve transparency, in particular in the context of fighting against corruption," said Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe and added that the NGO has already appealed to Spain's Constitutional Court and is ready to take this case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Spain is the only European country with a population over one million which still does not have an access to information law. This situation also means that Spain is failing to comply with its obligations under the UNCAC, which requires in its Article 13 that countries take measures to ensure that "the public has effective access to information". Read the full story...
Seems like there is yet a long way to go for transparency, even in parts of the "developed world"...
