The socialist leader in Madrid, Juan Lobato, intervenes during the control session in the Madrid Assembly.FERNANDO ALVARADO (EFE)
The general secretary of the PSOE in the Community of Madrid, Juan Lobato, announced this Thursday that the socialists will present an appeal to the Constitutional Court in the coming weeks against the sections of the Omnibus Law that "muzzle" transparency in the region.
The rule, approved at the end of December thanks to the absolute majority of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's PP, allows the regional government to control the organizations that must supervise its work, such as the Transparency Council or the Chamber of Accounts, and cements its dominance over the public television and radio in Madrid.
The PSOE will have the signature of 50 senators - including Lobato - to register its appeal before the high court.
More information
Antonio Rovira, member of the Transparency Council that Ayuso wants to control: “We were innovative, autonomous and annoying”
“The Government has fought against transparency and in favor of opacity, with an anti-transparency law,” Lobato complained during a press conference in the regional Assembly.
“The objective is that the Transparency Council of the Community of Madrid does not disappear, that the capacities of the Chamber of Accounts to supervise the president's management are not usurped, and that Telemadrid is not continued to be muzzled,” he denounced.
"I hope that we can recover the possibility that in Madrid citizens have the possibility of accessing information in a direct and truthful way."
These are the main changes brought about by the law in the sections on which the PSOE appeal will focus:
A Transparency Council elected by the Government
.
The body is made up of three councilors appointed by the Presidency of the Assembly, at the proposal of the plenary session of the chamber, by a three-fifths majority.
They serve for six years and rotate the presidency every two years.
Until now.
With the reform of the PP, the body that resolves complaints about the transparency of the Executive will be chaired by a person appointed by that same Executive, its only member, since the number of councilors increases from three to one.
And it is specified: “Its dependence on the Assembly is eliminated.”
A Chamber of Accounts controlled by the party in power
.
The PP has been trying since February 2022 to control the Chamber of Accounts, the body that oversees its contracts and expenses, and had not succeeded until now because it was in the minority, it depended on Vox, and the ultra party had opposed it.
What happen?
Since 2019, the members of this public entity were elected by two-thirds of the Assembly, which required an agreement between all parties without the possibility of unblocking in case of disagreement.
With the justification of this blockade, the conservatives have opted for the number of members of the body to go from three to seven and have modified the system for electing the president and councilors in a similar way to that for electing the Assembly Board.
That is, the majority party will control the Chamber, as happens in Parliament.
And it will do so soon: the new alignment must be approved, at the latest, three months after its approval.
New director for Telemadrid
.
“The election of the general director must be carried out within a maximum period of six months from the entry into force of this law,” reads the new rule approved by the Assembly.
What has changed?
Until now, this designation depended on the Assembly, which required consensus between the Government and the opposition.
After the reform, the appointment will be made by the General Meeting of Shareholders at the proposal of the Board of Directors of the company, whose members will be elected by the Assembly in the first quarter of 2024 from among those proposed by the Parliamentary Groups and according to their political weight.
That is, the majority party will dominate, just as in the parliamentary commission that must declare his suitability for the position.
In this case, the PP.
Although a government source assures that work has not yet begun on the name of the new director, no one rules out a promotion of the current provisional administrator, José Antonio Sánchez, a confessed voter of the conservative party.
However, Lobato has not limited himself to raising the fight for transparency in the region at a legal level.
During this Thursday's plenary session, he also confronted Ayuso about this matter during the control session of the regional government.
“The truth will set you free,” said Lobato, in reference to the obstacles that in his opinion the new law introduces when it comes to forcing the Executive to provide information.
This is how Ayuso responded: “The Transparency Council does not disappear, it expands its powers, because it will also keep the data, and it will have the same structure that it has in the State (...) We are going to put in charge officials who do not owe anything to any political party.”
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