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The new law provides for fines of up to three million for those who disseminate secret documents

2022-08-02T20:17:59.142Z


The Government assures that the sanctioning regime on classified information is not designed for the media


The third vice president, Teresa Ribera;

the Minister Spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez;

and the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, this Monday in La Moncloa.Mariscal (EFE)

The preliminary draft of the Classified Information Law, approved in the first round by the Government on Monday, includes the imposition of fines of between 50,000 and three million euros for accessing or disseminating secret information.

This sanctioning regime, the existence of which the Government did not report in the press conference after the Council of Ministers, includes among the very serious sanctions, which can give rise to the imposition of the maximum fine, "the dissemination, by any means, of information classified in the categories of top secret or secret”.

Government sources assure that these sanctions are not intended for the media and, although they admit that in theory journalists who disseminate secret documents could be sanctioned, they allege that "in practice the constitutional jurisprudence that prevails the right to information is imposed" .

According to these sources, the new regime is "more guaranteed" than the current law, which only stated that failure to comply with the prohibition of communicating, disseminating or publishing classified information would be punished according to criminal and disciplinary laws, considering in the latter case as a very serious fault.

In addition to the aforementioned fines, the draft bill includes as ancillary sanctions the "prohibition of contracting with public administrations", by companies, or the removal from office of those authorities and officials who fail to comply with their obligation to keep confidential classified information to which they have access, without prejudice to the criminal responsibilities they may incur.

More information

The Government rules out a massive declassification of the secrets accumulated since the end of the Franco regime

Access to documentation classified as top secret or secret without having the necessary security clearance and the delivery of said information to foreign powers when there is no international treaty for the exchange of the same will also be punished with the maximum sanction;

among many other assumptions.

The law, still pending final approval by the Council of Ministers before it is sent to the Cortes, establishes four types of document classification: top secret, secret, confidential and restricted.

The former will be automatically declassified after 50 years and the latter after 40. However, top secrets may be extended for 15 years and secrets for 10. The classification of confidential documents will last between 7 and 10 years, and the use of restricted between 4 and 6, periods in both cases non-extendable.

Contrary to previous drafts of this same rule, the bill does not provide for the automatic declassification of the documents accumulated since the law still in force came into force, in 1968, in the midst of Franco's regime, so that the secrets of the last stage of the dictatorship, the Transition and democracy remain in limbo.

The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, whose department has piloted the drafting of the text, alleged on Monday to justify this decision that it is a "huge" documentation.

The law only provides that this declassification be done “ex officio” by the authorities with the capacity to classify, but without being obliged to do so, and also “at the request of the people directly affected, who must indicate their interest in the information required. , the reasons that justify the requested declassification and identify in detail the information that is requested to be declassified”.

The procedure, as planned, seems to exclude historians, researchers or journalists, who would not be "persons directly affected", but also requires "detailed identification" of the requested document when, precisely because of its secret nature, the usual thing is even their existence is ignored.

In the event that the Government denies the declassification of a document, an appeal may be filed with the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court, but again this route is only provided for "persons directly affected", which seems to exclude historians, researchers and journalists and collides with the "right to know" that the law proclaims.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-02

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