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Spain The Police System
The principal forces of public order and security as of
1988
were the Civil Guard and the National Police Corps (Cuerpo
Nacional de Policia). The Civil Guard, fortified by nearly
a
century and a half of tradition, was a highly disciplined
paramilitary body with close links to the army. As it
evolved, it
served mainly as a rural police to protect property and
order and
to reinforce the authority of the central government.
Under
Franco, a tripartite system of police was formalized: the
Civil
Guard in rural areas; the Armed and Traffic Police
(renamed the
National Police in 1979), which fulfilled normal police
functions
in communities with a population of more than 20,000; and
the
Higher Police Corps of plainclothes police with
responsibility
for investigating crimes and political offenses. Separate
municipal police forces under the control of local mayors
were
concerned mainly with traffic control and with enforcement
of
local ordinances.
During the Franco era, the police had been regarded as
a
reactionary element, associated in the public mind with
internal
surveillance and political repression. The Civil Guard and
the
Armed and Traffic Police were legally part of the armed
forces,
and their senior officers were drawn from the army. The
1978
Constitution effects the separation of the police from the
military, and it emphasizes that one of the functions of
the
police is to safeguard personal liberties. Article 104 of
the
1978 Constitution states that, "The Security Corps and
Forces,
responsible to the Government, shall have as their mission
the
protection of the free exercise of rights and liberties
and the
guaranteeing of the safety of citizens." Although
considerably
delayed, a subsequent statute, the Organic Law on the
Security
Corps and Forces, was enacted in March 1986 to incorporate
the
mandate of the Constitution to redefine the functions and
the
operating principles of the police forces. With its
passage, the
final legal steps had been taken to make the police system
conform to the requirements of the democratic regime,
although
most observers concluded that it would be years before the
reforms were fully in effect.
The new organic law provided a common ethical code for
police
practices, affirmed trade union rights, recast the role of
the
judicial police serving under the courts and the public
prosecutors, combined the uniformed and the nonuniformed
police
into the single National Police Corps, and redefined the
missions
and the chains of command of the various police elements.
The
Civil Guard remained a separate paramilitary force,
although in
operational matters it was under the direction of the
Ministry of
Interior rather than the Ministry of Defense. In time of
war or
emergency, it would revert to the authority of the
minister of
defense. In 1986 a new post of secretary of state for
security
was created in the Ministry of Interior to coordinate the
activities of the National Police Corps and the Civil
Guard. The
National Police Corps functioned under the directives of
the
director general of the National Police Corps, but local
supervision was exercised by civil governors of the
provinces
where police forces served
(see
fig. 18).
Data as of December 1988
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