The Madrid High Court of Justice forced the community headed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso to submit reports of inspections carried out by local police in nursing homes in the region during the coronavirus outbreak. These are more than 200 first-hand accounts of the most difficult days of the pandemic, between March and August 2020, when thousands of residents died due to lack of hospital care, events that are being investigated by several courts.
Far from the tragedy described in the documents, the president’s decision represents a boost for transparency in public administrations. This basic principle of democracy, which is required to be adhered to under a 2013 state regulation, was developed by the Community of Madrid in a law approved by the Regional Assembly in 2019, four months before Ayuso won the presidency and took over from party colleague Ángel Garrido. With the achievement of an absolute majority in her second term, the popular leader carried out a reform according to which she linked the Transparency Council to the regional government, which has since appointed its president and sole member. Until that moment, it was an independent body affiliated with the Council, and the formations agreed on the names of its three members at that time.
It was the pre-reform Council that forced the regional executive to provide the minutes of inspections to a former Socialist MP who had requested them from the administration, which was reluctant to hand them over. The executive authority appealed the Transparency Commission’s decision to the court. In an inexplicable ruse if not for the judicialization of political life, and despite its attempt to prevent the documents from being published in the courts, the Ayuso government now asserts that it has allowed access to them for some time while keeping litigation open in the courts. But transparency is not a gift from the rulers, but rather a right of citizens. The contentious administrative chamber of the Madrid court was strict with regard to dismantling in the ruling the maneuvers with which the administration tried to avoid implementing the law. It does this by eliminating evasive arguments such as that the case documents are too voluminous or that there is an obligation to anonymize the documents.
Only transparency ensures scrutiny of the actions of public officials. Expanding its mechanisms strengthens democracy. On the other hand, denying the independence of guarantee bodies – making them dependent on the same governments that should supervise them – undermines the foundations of the system. The president’s sentence is an unnecessary reminder for any governor.