The legal framework of public civil archives in Spain

Abstract

The origins of modern legislation regulating civil public archives in Spain date back to the 19th century, although some of Spain’s current historical archives, such as the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, have their roots in the Middle Ages. In the second half of the 19th century, the need to preserve collections of the Inquisition, as well as from confiscated monasteries and religious houses, gave rise to the establishment of the State Historical Archive. The aforementioned legislation has been extensively revised since 1978 to additionally reflect the new Spanish territorial political model established by the current Basic Standard, which has gradually established a complex system of competencies in the field of public archives in Spain, depending on whether they are owned by the state (State Archives System) or by Spanish autonomous communities or other territorial public administrations (Autonomous Communities Archives System), as it has been outlined in the case law of the Constitutional Court of Spain. From the point of view of the Spanish state, Law 16/1985 of 25 June on the Spanish historical heritage is the basic normative act for the regulation of the state’s public archives, currently under the Ministry of Culture and Sports, specifically, under the General Subdirectorate of State Archives. The said archives are under the authority of a special body of officials – archivists, librarians and archaeologists. On the other hand, at the level of the Autonomous Communities, each Autonomous Community has approved its own specific legislation regarding the archives they own or have jurisdiction over. In this regard, by way of example and in relation to their representativeness, the legislation of the autonomous communities of Andalusia (current Law 7/2011 of 3 November on documents, archives and documentary heritage of Andalusia) and Catalonia (current Law 10/2001 of 13 July on archives and the circulation of records) has been discussed.