The Transparency and Good Government Council (CTBG) has addressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs three times “reiterating the need to comply immediately” the resolution of July 7, 2023, which imposed the obligation to publish the circulars that it sent to the consulates regarding the express naturalization processes of descendants of Spaniards abroad under the Law of Democratic Memory. This was requested by a private citizen, the lawyer Guillermo Rocafort, interested in knowing the provisions on this matter from the portfolio of José Manuel Albares.
“The reasons for inadmissibility and the limits invoked do not apply”concluded Transparency in its first resolution, recalling “the right of all persons to access public information” and ruling in favor of the lawyer, who requested the circulars in October 2022.
Having received no response to date and after contacting the CTGB again last December to find out if the resolution had been “challenged” by Foreign Affairs, the agency responded not having “evidence” “either of compliance or of the filing of an administrative appeal” by the ministry.
The next step by the interested party has been to file a complaint against Luis Cuesta, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the crimes of prevarication and disobedience, although he does not rule out requesting “again a rectification”, taking into account also that the Government has extended for another year the “grandchildren law” that allows the descendants of exiled Spaniards to acquire the nationality. “Because those circulars that the Transparency Council says must be public are kept secret.” In any case, the basis of the complaint is in its foundation the one formulated before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, which informed Rocafort of “Your right to file a complaint about these events before the judicial authorities if you consider it appropriate”after considering for its part the “filing of the proceedings as there were no traces of a crime in the complaint”. An action that the interested party deplores. “The Prosecutor’s Office is eloquently taking a backseat and avoiding documentary support based on the fact that I provide news reports that “lack the alleged criminal relevance”, when I demonstrate that the resolutions of the Transparency Council have been ignored”.
Rocafort ignores any reference to the press in the complaint already filed in court, and states that “the accused official He is the one who opposed the disclosure of the requested circulars and is therefore responsible for the subsequent processing of the file. of Transparency in said ministry and his stubborn refusal to provide public documentation, as the hierarchical responsible” before the CTBG.
The lawyer recalls that the ministry “has neither challenged the resolution in court within the established period of two months nor has it complied with it, that is, it is currently final.” The consequence is that “Almost a year has passed without the defendant having provided the circulars.”
According to Rocafort, “the accused does not want to provide the documentation in order to hide how the massive processes of nationalizations by Democratic Memory are being carried out through Spanish consulates around the world”, so that “we are faced with an obvious case of disobedience”, since “three requirements of the Transparency Council to provide said documentation have been breached”. Likewise, “we are faced with a prevarication by omission”, since “the accused is allowing tens of thousands of nationalizations based on regulations such as these circulars”; in this way “they would seek to quickly and massively increase the electoral census of votes for the PSOE through express nationalizations, covered by the Law of Democratic Memory, as has been published in the press”.
At the time of the complaint, “more than 110,000 nationalizations have been granted based on these circulars, which the defendant has kept hidden despite the resolution.”
By the end of last year, more than 110,000 people had obtained Spanish nationality under the Democratic Memory Law, according to data from the Balance of Consular Activity 2023. Since the law came into force on October 21, 2022, and until December 31, 2023, Spanish consulates received 226,354 applications.