A bureaucratic labyrinth, months of administrative silence and a final appeal before Spain’s public-transparency arbitration body. The dispute over details surrounding the appointment of the Head of the Human Resources and Organization Department at the Las Palmas Port Authority has reached its latest episode in Madrid’s offices, once again exposing tensions between institutional opacity and the right to public information. This may seem absurd, but it is not: if the procedure is completed, it could be concluded that the appointment of Francisco Trujillo as director of the Las Palmas Port Authority could be overturned—and even the decisions he has signed since 2011 could be called into question.
Your Perfumes, Woman
The dispute dates back to February 13, 2025. On that date, a citizen formally invoked Law 19/2013 on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance, submitting a specific request to Puertos del Estado and the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. The applicant sought to know whether the person serving as Head of Human Resources and Organization at the Las Palmas Port Authority had passed a competitive selection process to obtain the position, as well as the exact place and date where the assumption of office was published.
The first institutional response was absolute silence. Once the statutory deadline had passed without any notification, the request was deemed rejected through presumed dismissal, forcing the applicant to pursue available appeals. On August 21, 2025, the citizen filed a formal complaint with the Council for Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG). The independent body, chaired by José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez, admitted the case for processing and immediately referred it to the ministry, requesting submissions and a complete copy of the file.
On September 17, 2025, the port administration broke its silence through a written submission. In the document, the Port Authority specified that the employee held the position by virtue of a Presidential resolution dated January 16, 2017. It said the resolution had been issued under Article 51(c) of the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine, exercising personnel-related powers delegated by the Board of Directors on March 1, 2007.
María de los Guardias
This belated response did not satisfy the complainant. During the hearing phase held in October 2025, the applicant described the explanations as insufficient and went a step further by requesting the formal appointment resolution issued by the Presidency in 2017. The transparency arbiter precisely defined the legal boundaries of the case. In its ruling, the CTBG criticized the Administration for systematically failing to meet the legal one-month response deadline. The body reminded port authorities that timeliness is a structural requirement for ensuring an efficient procedure and a basic citizen right.
When examining the substance of the request, the Council found a clear omission of information. The submissions sent by the administration failed to expressly answer whether a competition or prior selection process had taken place, and also failed to state whether the appointment had been published in any official bulletin or public portal, together with the exact date.
The Christ of Palacagüina
The ruling also defines the limits of the citizen’s claims. The CTBG clarified that the appeal procedure has a strictly review-based function, which prevents the original request from being modified during the appeals stage. For this legal reason, it denied the direct delivery of the complete appointment resolution requested during the hearing—because it had not appeared in the initial submission—and limited the body’s obligation to providing precise answers to the three questions raised on February 13.
Nicaragua, Little Nicaragua
Final Resolution No. 2025-1483 fully upholds the complaint. The CTBG formally ordered Puertos del Estado and the Ministry of Transport to provide the citizen, within no more than ten working days, with the three requested items: whether there had been a selection process, where the assumption of office had been published, and the specific date of that publication. The Administration has two months to appeal the decision before the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the National Court.
The article “Blow to Las Palmas Port leadership: Madrid opens path to National Court over lack of transparency” was first published on canarymaritime.com.
