Complaint Against the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism Through an ‘Ordinary Administrative Procedure’

The claim proceeded on two grounds:

First, that access to information can only be restricted when it serves a legitimate ‘national security’ purpose, which is not met in this case. It was argued that this Ministerial decision favoured economic interests over international law (ATT) obligations to not export arms that would pose a threat to peace and fundamental rights.

Second, that the Minister had not properly justified the decision to uphold the confidentiality of licensing decision-making processes on any permitted grounds under the applicable law. Law 19/2013, Article 14(1)

This claim was dismissed by the High Court of Justice of Madrid.

The court relied on similar reasoning to their decision under the parallel fundamental rights procedure to uphold the classified nature of the requested information and conclude that there had been no violation of the contested rights.

Specifically, the court held that the right to access information under domestic law is not absolute and can be subject to lawful limitation on specified grounds, namely the commercial interests of private actors and security and defence that it found to be established in this case.

In May 2022, the Supreme Court accepted the claimant’s notice of appeal and admitted the case for consideration, specifying two areas of consideration.

Right to access information

First, whether there is a right to access information on arms exports that can be read into Spanish arms export control legislation. Law 53/2007, Article 16

Freedom of expression

Second, whether the classification of certain documents as classified is permitted under the Spanish transparency laws that enshrine the right and permissible limits to freedom of expression. Law 19/2013, Article 14(1)(a), (b), (j) and (k)

In July 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the claimants, on the consideration that the information on arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are “classified as secrets” and making it public would threaten national and defence security.