The Supreme Court forces Marlaska to reveal the extra ‘handmade’ that he distributes to prison directors
The Supreme Court obliges the Ministry of the Interior, led by Fernando Grande-Marlaskato reveal the plus by finger which is distributed among the prison directorsmiddle managers and a minority group of prison staff. It is about the productivity bonuswhich the Ministry pays them every month of December and it is discretionaryat the personal discretion of the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions and the directors.
The General Secretariat grants it to the directors, deputy directors and heads of servicewhile the prison directors in turn decide who they give it to on their staff, based on not having missed more than 10 days a year, although it is not granted to all staff who meet this requirement.
For this reason, prison officials are suspicious of the criteria that are being used and of the obscurantism in disclosing how public money is distributed. «We believe that the penitentiary policy that the directors of the prisons of enhance third degrees, conditional releases and reduce proposals to classify inmates in first degree is left over gratified through this remuneration that the General Secretariat maintains to date in absolute obscurantism,” the union told OKDIARIO. Your abandonment can kill me (TAMPM)who has won this ruling.
From now on, the Ministry will have to render accounts detailing to whom this supplement is paid – colloquially known as “scarf»– and the amounts. Information that has been hidden, to the point of reaching sue the Transparency and Good Governance Council in court for urging him to report.
According to the data handled by the prison officersthe few lucky ones among the penitentiary staff “receive about 250 euros a year, while the managers pocket about 1,200 euros».
The battle fought
The case dates back to December 2021when the union Your abandonment can kill methrough one of its representatives, requested from the Ministry the list of the management and pre-management staff of Penitentiary Institutions who had been awarded this bonus in the December payroll of that year and with what amount, as well as a report from each prison with the names of the beneficiaries, the area or service in which they work and the amount of each one..
The Ministry responded in January by offering general data, which did not convince the union, which decided to put its foot down and demand them through the Transparency Councilwhich upheld his request and urged the Ministry to, in a maximum period of 20 business dayssend said information to the claimant, with a copy to the agency.
Interior then appealed to the Central Contentious-Administrative Court 11, deploying the State Attorney’s Office, but its appeal was dismissed.
Later, he appealed the ruling before the National Court, which did agree with him, but now he has received a blow of the Supremewhich has upheld separate appeals from the prison official and the independent body whose function is to protect the right of access to public information and control compliance with transparency obligations in the Administration.
He Marlaska Ministry alleged that the limitations imposed on the protection of personal data “prevent offering information that accurately identifies the remuneration amounts of each public employee”, and that this impediment “also affects specific job positions, since it would be an indirect way to avoid, in manifest fraud of law, such obligation.”
However, the Supreme highlights that “the principle of remuneration transparency in public employment constitutes a manifestation of the democratic principle accountability», since «it allows citizens and representatives of public employees democratic control of public spendingverifying that the resources allocated to staff remuneration are allocated in accordance with the law, under the principle of equality and respecting objective criteria of merit and capacityas well as that they are managed with the efficiency that good administration demands.
A principle that “serves citizen control over public spending and favors citizen confidence in institutions.” And it states that “union representatives have the right to access public information regarding the amounts received by each official as a productivity supplement.”
«There is no justification for the administration, in the 21st century, to dedicate itself to curtailing rights that were already recognized in the old Public Service Law, relying on a twisted interpretation of the Data Protection Law», declares to OKDIARIO Javier Bravorepresentative of the union Your Abandon can kill me.
And he criticizes that “it is regrettable that the administration has been spending public resources for five years to hide “the management of public money, a practice that, unfortunately, is common in the current management leadership of Penitentiary Institutions.”
The resolution is number 769/2026, dated June 18. It is signed by the magistrates José Manuel Bandrés Sánchez-Cruzat (president), Eduardo Calvo Rojas, Diego Córdoba Castroverde, José Luis Gil Ibáñez (speaker), Berta María Santillán Pedrosa, Juan Pedro Quintana Carretero and Margarita Beladiez Rojo.
«This ruling provides transparency to how public money is allocated in the face of the enormous effort on the part of the Ministry to hide the data. From now on, the Transparency Portal must provide the information,” Bravo concludes.
He wants more prisoners on the street
As this newspaper has recently reported, Marlaska has put in just a year and a half, 1,470 prisoners were released into semi-freedom against the criteria of prison technicians.
«The minister wants there to be more and more prisoners on the street. A politicized decision, like the fact benefit the most dangerous prisoners by moving them from first degree to second degree», they declare to OKDIARIO from the TAMPM union.
Marlaska Under his mandate, he has reduced the number of first-degree prisoners by no less than 60%, the regime applied to the most troublesome. From the 1,011 first-grade inmates in 2017, it fell to 990 in 2018 and has been progressively decreasing until 2025, when there were barely 400.
According to the latest official data, the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions rejects one in three first-degree proposals. A decision made by a technician from the Secretariat who has never seen the inmate.
Since Marlaska’s appointment as minister, the reduction of those classified in the first degree – closed regime – is one of the objectives of his Ministry and Penitentiary Institutions, directed by Angel Luis Ortiz.
Prison officials report that “This do-gooder policy has triggered the spiral of violence in prisons”with up to 527 attacks on officials in 2025which is more than double that of 2018, and with sustained maximum historical increases since 2022.
The mandate of Marlaska leaves a clear diagnosis for the TAMPM union: “A more flexible, but less secure system.” And he highlights that this is not only suffered by officials, but also by inmates who comply with the rules and «lor society will end up suffering.
“The official statistics themselves corroborate the failure of the current penitentiary policy, by showing a clear correlation between the reduction of first grades, the laxity in the application of the sanctioning regime and the increase in attacks on officials,” he denounces. TAMPM.