The Transparency Law also eludes Jaime de Marichalar. The ex-husband of the infanta Elena de Borbón and ex-brother-in-law of Felipe VI is not part of the Royal House nor is he attached to any State institution, but still has an opacity wall that prevents knowing if it maintains some type of escort in charge of the public treasury.
According to a file from the Ministry of the Interior to which he has had access Publicthe Secretary of State for Security rejected last February a request for information made through the Transparency Portal, in which they consulted precisely on Marichalar’s protection service.
In its response, the ministry headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska cites the Agreement of the Council of Ministers adopted on November 28, 1986 “by which certain matters and matters are classified in accordance with the Law
of Official Secrets” of the Franco dictatorship, still in force.
The Interior also clings to the agreements adopted in March and July 1994 – also under the protection of that Francoist law – which gave the rating of reserved both “to the security plans of institutions and public bodies” and to the “protection plans of all those people subjected to it”.
Based on these legal arguments, the Secretary of State for Security invokes the “need to restrict information whose disclosure to unauthorized persons could cause serious risk or harm for the security and defense of the State”, which “implies the restriction of the information requested”, in relation to Jaime de Marichalar’s protection service.
In the opinion of the Interior, the “knowledge or dissemination” of such information “by unauthorized persons may put at risk both the security of the people object of protection as well as the agents in charge of it”.
habitual silence
As you have been able to verify Publicthe arguments used in this case are practically traced to those exposed in different consultations –also formulated through the Transparency Portal– on the cost or size of Casa Real’s security services.
The refusal of the Ministry of the Interior to provide any information of this nature has also reached the questions that affected the escort service accompanying Juan Carlos I in the United Arab Emirates.
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