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Article 105 of the 1978 Constitution states:

The law shall regulate […] b) access by the citizens to the administrative archives and registers except where it affects the security and defense of the State, the investigation of crimes, and the privacy of persons.

The 1992 Law on Rules for Public Administration provides for access to government records and documents by Spanish citizens. It also includes rules for access of persons in administrative proceedings. The provisions on access were included to implement the 1990 EU Access to Environmental Information Directive. The documents must be part of a file which has been completed. Agencies must respond in three months.

Documents can be withheld if the public interest or a third party's interest would be better served by non-disclosure or if the request would affect the effectiveness of the operations of the public service. Access can also be denied if the documents refer to government actions related to constitutional responsibilities, national defense or national security, investigations, business or industrial secrecy or monetary policy. Access to documents that contain personal information are limited to the persons named in the documents. There are also restrictions for information protected by other laws including classified information, health information, statistics, the civil and central registry, and the law on the historical archives.

Denials can be appealed administratively. The Ombudsman can also review cases of failure to follow the law. The Ombudsman recommended in 2002 that agencies make access with 15 days for files for with an interest and 30 days for general access and not overuse the exception on effectiveness of the public administration.

Government bodies are also required to maintain a registry of documents and publish acts and decisions.

An extensive report published in October 2005 by Sutentia and The Open Society Justice Initiative concludes that nearly 60 percent of the requests filed under the Law 30/1992 for the study were unanswered. From requests filed under the Law 38/1995 on the right of access to information relating to the environment, only 30 percent were answered correctly, while 20 percent were answered late and the remaining 50 percent were never answered. The report recommends that Spain needs to adopt a FOI law according to international standards because Law 30/1992 is not enough to guarantee an adequate right of access.

There was considerable controversy about information over the blame for the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. The government selectively declassified documents in March 2004 after it lost the election in an effort to show that ETA was responsible for the bombings. The Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in December 2004 that his predecessor Jose Maria Aznar had destroyed all computer files relating to the investigation of the bombings when he left office. Zapatero received the €12,000 bill by the computer consulting form for the destruction of the files.

Spain signed the Aarhus Convention in June 1998 and ratified it in December 2004. Law 38/1995 on the right of access to information relating to the environment implemented the 1990 EU Access to Environment Directive. It was adopted after the European Commission found that the Law on Public Administration was not adequate and started infringement proceedings against Spain in 1992. In July 2005, the European Commission announced that it was taking legal action against Spain and six other countries for failing to implement the 2003 EU Directive on access to environmental information.

The Data Protection Act allows individuals to access and correct records about themselves held by public and private bodies. It is enforced by the Data Protection Agency.

[Footnotes for this section are currently unavailable but will be posted the week of July 10. All footnotes and references are also available in the full study, available here.]

2004 freedominfo.org Global Survey Results - Spain

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Notes

[Footnotes for this section are currently unavailable but will be posted the week of July 10. All footnotes and references are also available in the full study, available here.]

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