Supreme Court curbs Labour Inspectorate silence: official secrecy cannot hide why a complaint was shelved
The court orders the ministry to explain what it did with a complaint before shelving it: inspectors' secrecy is no limit on transparency.
A citizen reported a possible breach of labour law to the Labour Inspectorate and shortly afterwards was told his file had been shelved. He never learned why: whether inspectors visited the workplace, requested documents or carried out any check at all. The Labour Ministry refused to explain, invoking inspectors' duty of secrecy. The Supreme Court, in a judgment of 22 September, sides with him and opens the door for complainants to learn what the administration did with their claims before closing them, Cinco Días reports.
A staged judicial battle
The case's path shows the administrative resistance. The Council of Transparency and Good Governance first upheld the citizen, and Central Contentious-Administrative Court number 4 confirmed his right to the information. The Audiencia Nacional, however, narrowed that access: he could learn the identity of the official involved, but not the inspectorate's concrete steps, such as visits, requests or checks, holding that inspection rules prevailed over the Transparency Act.
The Supreme Court corrects that reading with a clean distinction. The duty of secrecy bars inspectors from disclosing on their own initiative information learned through their office, but it does not allow the administration to conceal it when a citizen requests it under transparency law. In the judgment's words, secrecy cannot be read as a legal limit on the right of access, nor does it classify as secret the information gathered by inspectors when a third party asks for the reasons behind an administrative decision.
Neither automatic access nor automatic silence
The ruling does not fling open the inspectorate's files. The administration may still protect personal data, companies' economic and commercial information and whatever is needed not to compromise ongoing investigations. What it can no longer do is refuse outright: it must process each request, weigh the applicable legal limits, reason any restriction and consider whether documents can be released with anonymised data. Every restriction, the judgment warns, must be necessary and proportionate.
Experts consulted by Cinco Días qualify the scope. Francisco Trujillo Pons, senior lecturer in Labour Law and of counsel at Ecija Advisory, notes that anyone receiving an insufficient answer now has judicial grounds to claim, although learning what the inspectorate did does not mean the investigation will reopen. Daniel Toscani, professor of Labour Law at the University of Valencia, warns that the presence of sensitive data is not enough to veto access and expects officials will have to document their work better, with the resulting administrative burden.
A warning that comes in a streak
This is not the high court's first recent rebuke of the inspectorate. Last April, the Supreme Court already recalled that inspectors cannot enter a workplace that is also a registered home without consent or judicial authorisation.
Source: Cinco Días (30 October 2026).
Related links
Fuentes
- cincodias.elpais.com. Accessed 1 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
