Spain

[ES] Tapping King Juan Carlos' Phone Conversations

IRIS 1995-7:1/38

Ad van Loon

European Audiovisual Observatory

The spokesman for the Judges of the Supreme Court declared on 15 June 1995 that the broadcasting of the contents of King Carlos' taped telephone conversations constituted an offence. Article 18 of the Spanish Constitution guarantees the right to privacy, an essential part of the individual's rights. Legal precedents were set in the decisions of the Constitutional Court of 22/1984 and 114/1984. The Institutional Act 1/1982 of 5 May 1982 states that breach of the civil right to honour, personal and family privacy and self-image can be compensated by the award of damages. Articles 192, 192a, 197 and 197a of the recently-amended Spanish penal code (Codigo Penal), punishes not only those who tap the conversations and then reveal what they heard, but also any party who acquires such information, knowing it to have been illegally obtained.