The Council of Europe once again puts Spain in a commitment. A new report drawn up by the Commission for Legal Affairs and Human Rights, with Dutchman Pieter Omtzigt at the head, calls on the Spanish Government to clarify as soon as possible the use of Pegasus, Candiru and other spying software and the insta to provide all the necessary information to the Venice commission within three months. In addition, the text that was approved yesterday puts Spain in the same bag as Azerbaijan, Poland, Hungary and Greece for the use of these espionage systems.
The documentation endorsed yesterday is still subject to amendments and should be put to a vote again in the plenary session of the Assembly of the Council of Europe (between October 9 and 13) for its final approval.
The report touches on the idea that the Spanish authorities, after the use of Pegasus that originated Catalangate was uncovered in March 2022, still have not delivered enough elements of what, for example, the European Parliament requested at the beginning of 2023. The speakers show their concern and warn that the use of spy programs should be limited to "really serious crimes", such as terrorism. Likewise, the Council of Europe requests that Spain refrain from using national security or Official Secrets law to deny access to information to victims.
For the Commission on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, up to 65 cases of espionage have been proven, after the investigation by Citizen Lab, and warns that, if its use is motivated to discredit political opponents and silence them, produces a violation of human rights. The speakers ask Spain for a complete and determined investigation and to give an account of it in three months to the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's consultative body in constitutional matters and which helps States adapt their legal and institutional structures to the European standards.
This report is added to the one approved by the Council of Europe itself in 2021. In this case it was led by the Latvian Boriss Cilevičs and the freedom of expression in Spain was questioned, he considered the crimes of rebellion and sedition as "obsolete and excessively broad to address what is actually a political problem that has to be solved by political means", and invited the Government of Pedro Sánchez to "pardon or release from prison the Catalan politicians convicted for their role in the organization of the unconstitutional referendum of October 2017". A subsequent follow-up report was stalled after the PSOE and the PP joined forces.
