Spain: Access to information: a case from Galicia
01 September 2005
An essay in the journal of the Galician civil liberties observatory Escula highlights the distance between the formal recognition of the right to information and the difficulties of exercising this right, using a local incident in the Galician town of Mondariz as an example. In relation to the planned construction of a ring road around the town, a group of people who decided to find out more about the plan, most notably its environmental impact, found there were limits affecting their right to know, although they continued their struggle leading to the temporary suspension of the project.
There were two kinds of obstacles. On the one hand, the attitude of civil servants faced with the uncommon event of a group of citizens wanting information about an action by the government (surprise, uneasiness, mistrust and a lack of assistance). On the other hand, the physical conditions in which the information was found (huge piles of documents), the absence of public advisors to consult, and the impossibility of making photocopies. "It is as if we were told that the right to education consists in making textbooks available to students...", notes the author. Another problem compounded these: the deadline to present submissions concerning the ring road project was approaching. A request for its extension was denied using the argument that "the initial one-month deadline was more than adequate for any citizen to be able to gather information and make a submission".
Through their work and with the help of advisors, the neighbours were eventually able to discover the characteristics of a project that initially seemed very advantageous for the town of Mondariz. This information, once examined, was shown to be very harmful, with implications including: the cancellation of the local communication network between populated centres, a decrease in the forecast for the creation of new industrial facilities, the degradation of the river Tea (a protected area) and of listed areas of historical and artistic importance. A joint submission was filed to oppose the project and the relevant local council committee withdrew it and began proceedings to come up with an alternative.
The Galician civil liberties observatory Esculca is launching a campaign on access to information in Spain, and has organised a conference on this issue in Vigo in November 2005 (website: http://www.esculca.net). The essay "O acceso à información: unha experiéncia prática" (Access to information: a practical case) appeared in Esculca Bulletin no. 9 (2nd quarter 2005), pp.4-9.