Defense must make public the minutes of the change of name of the Flag Commander Franco

2023-09-09 02:36:29

The Millán Astray Patriotic Platform filed an appeal before the National Court against the withdrawal of the Commander Franco Flag of the Tercio Gran Capitán 1º de La Legión, based in the General Command of Melilla, a judicial process initiated by the Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF ) before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Court after the Official Gazette of the Ministry of Defense published a resolution by which the unit was renamed Bandera España.

One of the controversial legal aspects of this lawsuit is the one related to the consideration of the legal nature of the minutes of the Monitoring Committee of the Democratic Memory in the field of Defense and its impact or not on the decision of the holder of the portfolio, Margarita Robles, to withdraw the original name.

For the ministry, these minutes are not public information because they “refer to information that is auxiliary or supportive in nature, such as that contained in notes, drafts, opinions, summaries, communications and internal reports or between administrative bodies or entities,” and therefore so much cannot be delivered.

However, the Transparency and Good Government Council (CTBG) has issued a resolution favorable to the legionary veterans of the Millán Astray Platform in which it determines that in no case will information that “has relevance in the processing of the file or in the formation of the political will of the body, that is, it is relevant for accountability, knowledge of public decision-making and its application. Consequently, the Ministry of Defense is urged to deliver it, which had been requested in December 2022 and denied in January of this year, a reason that led to the claim now supported by Transparency.

As determined by the CTBG, “the minutes of the meetings of a collegiate body do not include, as a minimum necessary content, the entire discussions and deliberations or the opinions expressed by each of the members, but only “the main points of the deliberations, as well as the content of the agreements adopted. It also considers that neither “the mere generic reference to what was discussed, much less to the content of the agreements adopted, can be covered by the guarantee of confidentiality or secrecy of the deliberation. Before, on the contrary, the knowledge of these extremes constitutes the guarantee that the administrative body dealt with certain matters and the decisions that were adopted for that purpose.

For this reason, in the resolution with reference 575-2023 and signed on August 29, Transparency urges Defense to provide the claimant, with a copy for the CTGB, “all the minutes issued by the Monitoring Committee of the Democratic Memory Law of the Ministry of Defense, since its constitution»; “all the requirements for actions or petitions that said committee has received, especially those of the senator [Carles] Cloudy” [Compromís]; “all the reports that he has received, both legal and otherwise, in the exercise of his functions”, and “copy of the publication in the BOE of the creation of said committee as well as the Regulations on its operation”.

From the Millán Astray Patriotic Platform they express their “satisfaction with this new favorable resolution of the Transparency Council” and point out “the general lack of respect of the Ministry of Defense towards veterans of the Armed Forces in general and, in particular, those of La Legion”, which, they denounce, “has practically abandoned, having become a reactive Administration and sometimes hostile towards them and what they mean for Spain.”

For both the legionary veterans and the Franco Foundation, the Commander Franco Flag is named to honor a commander of the Legion – the first head of that Flag – and his unit in memory of the “transcendent” performance that the relief of Melilla entailed. in 1921, and for his skills and capabilities as military leader of such a force, together with the fact that this designation was recognized by the Ministry of Defense itself 17 years after his death, in 1992, during the socialist government of Felipe González. “The reason why the name is changed is totally unrelated to the purpose and objective of the Democratic Memory Law,” they defend. The Millán Astray Platform adds the “irretroactivity” of the most sanctioning norm, such as the LMD, when “the ministry itself recognizes that the Commander Franco Flag had passed the filter” of the 2007 Memory Law.