The Council for Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG) has urged the Ministry of Health to make known the names of the technicians referred to by the director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, as in charge of advising the Government in decisions about de-escalation.
Transparency considers that the right to data protection of these people is not violated and that the control of public activity by citizens is favored in “relevant decisions in public health matters”.
The resolution, advanced by Europa Press and consulted by EL PAÍS, does not refer to any "committee of experts", but to the technicians that Simón spoke of at a press conference held on May 6.
The question from
eldiario.es
to which the head of CCAES responded was: “Who are in charge of evaluating the requests of the communities to move on to the next phase?
How many?".
To which Simón replied that he was not going to provide the names of that "team of technicians" to avoid pressure.
He pointed out that there were "11 or 12" people "who work in the General Directorate of Public Health" and that they collaborated very closely with the technicians of the autonomous communities and cities in the decisions about the change of phase.
The CTBG agrees with a lawyer who that same day asked the Ministry of Health through the Transparency Portal to inform him of the identity of those people, whom he did not refer to as "committee" in his question: "It is requested to know the number and name and surnames of the experts to whom Mr. Simón specifically referred today ”, he wrote.
Transparency believes that Health should provide those names and urges the ministry led by Salvador Illa to send that information within 10 days.
As the CTBG resolutions are not binding, Health could do three things: ignore the Transparency resolution, appeal it in court or deliver the data to the applicant.
More than half of the 327 resolutions referring to the General State Administration that this newspaper analyzed last year had not been complied with.
Of these, more than half were ignored by the governments of Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez, and the rest were appealed.
The CTBG rejects in its resolution the argument put forward by the General Directorate of Public Health to withhold said information, stating that the fact that the names, surnames and number of experts who have performed functions within the framework of the The management of the pandemic does not violate the right to protection of personal data: “Not only does it not violate the personal data of those affected, but it also contributes to the control of public activity and that citizens know the process of making relevant decisions in public health matters, especially in extraordinary situations, such as the one produced by the covid-19 pandemic ”.
The General Directorate of Public Health, in a letter dated September 29, denied this information to the lawyer “for reasons of data protection”, alleging that the members of the expert committee are “public personnel who are not considered to be high-ranking officials or executive staff".
Until now, Transparency had determined that the Administration must provide the names of senior positions or positions of special trust, as is the case with the famous "advisers" of the ministries, positions that are very well paid and that are obtained on a discretionary basis (by finger) But it had barely commented on the identity of the officials who carry out technical tasks.
In his claim to the CTBG the lawyer wrote: "The truth is that, if the list of experts is not provided to me or to the Transparency Council, we will never know if what is indicated to me by the claimed entity is true," he said.
In addition, he argued that “it is certainly surreal to maintain that the members of an expert committee are not formally senior positions or managers (...), since in good logic and at a practical and real level they are people who occupy a prominent position , of consultation and decision, in a pandemic whose information is of public relevance ”.
The CTBG has answered that it does not consider applicable "the limit of data protection invoked by the Administration" because being "merely identifying data related to the organization, operation or public activity of the required body", the Ministry of Health, " the right of access to public information prevails ”.
Transparency cites a 2017 ruling to highlight that the right to information is not only “essential” in democracy, but that “public administrations are financed with funds from taxpayers and their main mission is to serve citizens, therefore that all the information they generate and possess belongs to the citizen ”.
"Reporting on the number of experts cannot be considered contrary to that right (to the protection of personal data), as it is a mere numerical data without identification of any natural person," he adds.
Regarding the name and surname of these people, the resolution ensures that "there are multiple precedents in that Transparency Council that uphold claims in which information of the same or similar nature was requested."
In those mentioned, however, the names of members of expert committees constituted as such were requested.
One of them is the committee of experts that advised on the design of the de-escalation and that created the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
Some of the members of this committee have made themselves known;
others asked to remain anonymous.
Transparency also criticizes in the resolution that Health did not answer the lawyer until September 29, skipping the deadlines of the Transparency Law.
Nor did it send any allegations to justify its refusal to hand over the data.
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