Transparency International urges “depoliticization” of Spain’s Constitutional Court

For the last eighteen months, the Spanish chapter of Transparency International has been striving to get the 20D Spanish election campaign to focus on anti-corruption measures. It managed to do so just before the European elections, when most of Spain’s political parties failed the transparency index. A year later, in the lead-up to the local and regional polls, Ciudadanos, the PSOE and UPyD got straight As, a score which they have kept ahead of the general elections, even though the watchdog does not check whether the information provided by political parties is actually accurate. With only six weeks to go before the elections on December 20, Transparency International is back with a challenge for the political parties: to include in their platforms up to 40 steps to prevent and fight political and institutional corruption. At the top of the list is the vow to end the existing particracy in Spain.

The NGO demands a “commitment to end the partisan political meddling with the appointment of the members of the Constitutional Court, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Court of Auditors, the Spanish Ombudsman and the Council of State, as well as their counterparts at regional level. Instead, such offices should be filled by competent, qualified individuals, chosen in a transparent manner and following objective criteria”.

Transparency International complained that, regardless of these commitments, political parties in Spain still have “little credibility when it comes to corruption” and that is why the last elections became “a punishment” for traditional parties. According to the NGO’s chairman, professor Jesús Lizcano, in Spain there is a particracy, whereby political parties make their presence felt in every official body and institution.

Pressure on judges

While the average number of judges per 100k people in Europe is 21, in Spain it is only 11. That is why they advise the “urgent staffing” of the judicial and prosecutorial branches in order to tackle corruption, as well as employing specialists to guarantee the independence of the judicial power. The NGO mentioned that, according to a survey by Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ, in Spanish), 9 per cent of all judges admitted to having felt pressured while trying corruption cases, while a further 9 per cent chose not to volunteer an answer.

End of discretionary appointments

A commitee composed of 33 experts on the subject --including Albert Batllé, the general manager of Catalonia’s police force, plus a representative of Catalonia’s Anti-Fraud Bureau-- was tasked with drafting the 40 measures. In addition to depoliticizing the process by which the members of the country’s main institutions are chosen, they also argued for a ban on politicians joining oversight bodies. They also made a case for setting a limit on the number of terms that politicians and officials may serve, and dropping the legal immunity afforded to politicians if they become the subject of a judicial investigation for corruption, tax or social security fraud or embezzlement of public grants and subsidiaries.

A single online portal on public tenders

According to Manuel Villoria, a professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and a member of Transparency International Spain, the second most important element is the oversight of the political parties’ foundations. “As we have seen in Catalonia with the 3 per cent scandal1, political foundations are a tool for procuring illegal funds”, he said. The NGO suggests setting up a single online portal for all of Spain with details of all the contracts given by the administration to companies, and their ties with the funding of political parties.

Transparency International noted that most corruption cases connected with public tenders occur at local and regional level. According to the 2014 Eurobarometer, 97 per cent of the businesses polled claimed to have become aware of corruption issues in public tenders and that they chose not to submit a bid because the tender had already been fixed beforehand.

In tune with Podemos and Ciudadanos

Both Podemos and Ciudadanos have vowed to depoliticize Spain’s Constitutional Court. Podemos have proposed a new method to choose its members: by means of a disqualifying vote. In other words, each party would draw up a list of “technically qualified” individuals and then they would each strike off a number names commensurate with their representation in parliament which they felt should not join the Court. Podemos’ approach for the General Council of the Judiciary is even bolder. They propose to cut down the number of members from 20 to 15, and to put them to a popular vote. Only judges, magistrates, prosecutors, judicial secretaries and jurists will be allowed to run, provided they are “outstanding professionals with at least ten years’ experience and are endorsed by an association, a trade union or a citizens’ group”.

Last summer Ciudadanos had urged a “complete depoliticization” of the Constitutional Court and other judicial bodies, such as the CGPJ and the Prosecution, following the PP and PSOE’s “rupture of the separation of powers”. To date, Ciudadanos are still to disclose their proposal.

Broken promises

Last Thursday in Madrid all political parties were invited to discuss transparency and participation ahead of the general elections at an event hosted by Polétika, an online watchdog tasked with “overseeing and persuading election candidates to keep the people as the main focus of their political decision-making”. The PP and Ciudadanos, despite much insistence, failed to send a representative. Albert Rivera, the Ciudadanos candidate and flag-bearer of transparency, is now under suspicion because the 2014 accounts published by his party on its website do not add up. Despite numerous promises, the PP has made no progress when it comes to regulating lobbies because they “feel that there are more urgent matters in the regeneration platform”.