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Tag Archive: Spain

Quién Manda: Who’s the Boss? – Spain Edition (Now with less Tony Danza)

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quien-manda_logoLaunched last week by Madrid based nonprofit, Civio, Quién Manda (Who Rules?) takes on the task of monitoring the goings on of Spanish public officials and influential corporate leaders. The platform has been designed to keep an eye on the unmonitored, and rarely recorded interactions that Spanish politicians are having behind closed doors, tinted car windows and somehow frequently right in front of the lens of a camera. The team at Civio has tasked themselves with tagging photos a la Facebook with as many high profile names as they can. Each individual and corporation that gets tagged receives a profile that collects all tagged photos and displays the power connections that have been identified, along with links to social media accounts and any available biographical information. The system currently has over 100 tagged photographs, identifying over 2500 relationships.

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OpenGov Voices: On the eve of a disappointing FOI law, Spanish civic organizations meet the challenge

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.

David CaboJacobo Elosua

Victoria Anderica

This guest post is co-authored by David Cabo, Victoria Anderica and Jacobo Elosua. David and Jacobo co-founded Fundación Ciudadana Civio, which promotes an engaged citizenry through transparency and data openness in Spain. Together, they empower citizens with information technologies and data journalism to demand for transparency and accountability from government. David also created dondevanmisimpuestos.es, a website that visualizes annual budgets from Spanish public administrations. Victoria Anderica works with Access Info Europe -- a group that provides access to legislation information under the Right to Information Rating projects. She is involved in the “Legal Leaks” -- a project that trains journalists on how to use access to information laws.

Corruption is the second biggest concern for Spaniards, right after unemployment, according to quarterly polls.

From news about fraud accusations about the King of Spain’s son-in-law to judicial investigations into the ruling People’s Party to a scandal involving the Socialist Party and major trade unions over unemployment benefits fraud, citizens are losing patience and much of the media’s attention is focused on the country’s institutions.

Civio Foundation petitionIn response to these scandals, the word “transparency” is suddenly heard in every corner, in every demonstration, in every TV debate. Many more Spaniards are now aware of what some civic organizations have been denouncing for years: Spain is the only country in Europe with more than one million inhabitants who do not have access to information legislation.

The Spanish Congress is currently debating a draft law that fails the test when subjected to most basic international standards. Access to information is still not a fundamental right in line with the ruling of international courts of human rights. Currently, the law only applies to administrative information – not to the judicial and legislative branches of the state. The definition of “administrative information” excludes drafts, notes, internal reports or communications between administrative bodies. And the monitoring and appeals body is not independent because it is part of the Ministry of Public Administrations.

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