Transparency forces the Treasury to reveal how many affiliates each party has up to date with payment

He considers that citizens should also know the number of people who donate money each year to political formations

MADRID, 6 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Council for Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG) has ordered the Ministry of Finance to respond to the request for information submitted by an individual to whom it must send the annual breakdown of the number of people who have paid an affiliation fee to a political party between 2015 and 2021, which would allow knowing the real number of militants that each party or coalition has. In addition, you must provide data on the number of people who have made other types of monetary donations to political entities.

The person to whom the CTBG has given the reason, admitting the appeal that he filed against the decision of the Treasury to deny him information, requested this data in December 2021. In his letter he made it clear that in no case did he ask for the identification of the affiliates or donors, so with his request he did not put their personal data at risk.

The Treasury took six months to inform him that it was not going to meet his request, thus failing to comply with the one-month period established by law to answer individuals about their requests for information. The Treasury seized on one of the causes of inadmissibility provided for in the Transparency Law, which authorizes not to attend to requests that are "manifestly repetitive or have an unjustified abusive nature" for the purpose of the rule.

Specifically, he replied, alluding to the "large volume of political parties, federations and coalitions" to which the request would have to be transferred and also to the "restricted nature of the tax data" of taxpayers, whether natural or legal persons.

In addition, the department headed by María Jesús Montero argued that political parties are already affected by the Transparency Law and have to inform about the contracts and agreements signed with the public administration, the subsidies they receive.

"It seems evident that your right to reserve tax data cannot be restricted by providing information (donations received from individuals) that has not been expressly contemplated by the legislator within the duty of transparency of political parties, since the legislator has limited its duty of transparency to the subsidies received from Public Administrations", added the Treasury in its response to the requester for information, to which it stressed that it was not possible "in any case to provide the information requested due to its confidential nature".

After the Treasury denied his request, the petitioner filed an appeal with the CTBG, stressing to the ministry that he did not want to have access to any specific data on any taxpayer, so giving him what he requested would not imply any breach of confidentiality. The CTBG forwarded this appeal to the ministry but the latter refused to present allegations.

Finally, the Council agreed with the appellant for several reasons. In the first place, he warned that the Treasury had not "justified or proven" the allegedly abusive nature of the request and stressed to the ministry that "a request cannot be considered abusive for the mere fact of affecting a very important plurality of matters or files, nor may be considered abusive because it affects the rights or interests of third parties".

Likewise, according to the CTBG "it is not evident that the disclosure of mere numerical data on donations or fees paid in the requested time period, which does not include information of an economic nature, may significantly affect the rights and interests of the receiving entities ".

"In short, - the resolution abounds - there is no excess in the conduct lacking a serious and legitimate purpose with the intention of harming, nor is there an excess in the use of the right that can be classified as abnormal. The request is presented in exercise of a subjective public right guaranteed in the Constitution and in the law and does not underlie a will to harm the rights or legitimate interests of third parties, therefore the concurrence of the cause of inadmissibility invoked is not appreciated proceeding the estimation of the claim in this point".

For the CTBG, the allegations of the Tax Agency that "the information requested exceeds that provided for in the obligations in terms of active advertising imposed on political parties" that only affects contracts, list of agreements and subsidies are not acceptable either. / public aid granted by a Public Administration.

On this point, the Council stresses that "the scope of the right of access to information (broader) does not coincide with that of active advertising" and, furthermore, "the information sought has not been requested from parties politicians but to the AEAT itself", to the extent that it is information that taxpayers make known to the same to the extent that these contributions to parties allow a tax deduction.

Likewise, the CTBG reports that the information sought by the claimant "is not information referring to the identity of the taxpayers, nor does it reveal their ideology or affiliation, but rather refers to third parties; to political parties, political formations or groups of electors".

Finally, it stresses that "it cannot be ignored that the claimant himself states that such information has already been provided by the AEAT in advance --providing a link to a journalistic news item (of the year 2019) in which information regarding the number is transferred of people who have paid membership fees or made donations to political parties, coalitions or groups of voters".