After four years of legal battles, several expulsions and a few arrest threats, the Mayor of Mojacar has lost her battle to prevent council sessions being filmed – it’s now enshrined in a new law published this week, the Andalucian Law of Transparency.
It’s a constitutional right for any citizen to sit in on a standard council meeting, and to take any notes he or she wants to. In principle, this means you can record the session, as long as you don’t get in the way. In reality, any attempt to record a Mojacar council would result in Rosmari ordering the burliest of the policia local to grab you by the scruff of your neck and kick you out.
This caused a lot of whining from the opposition, and eventually Mojacar decided to get around this pesky side effect of democracy by only allowing one camera in – their own. The townhall would film all plenary sessions, announced Rosmari, and the film would -eventually- be put onto the official website. Where it was not only copyrighted (so you can’t copy it under threat of legal action) but usually under a password, too.
Anyway, the new Andalucian Law of Transparency, published this week, enshrines in regional law the specific right for any citizen to film a plenary session of their local council. No ifs, no buts. The opposition has gleefully photocopied the relevant law and passed a copy to every cop on Rosmari’s payroll, and announced that they are looking forwards to the next plenary session….