The Civil Guard provides a public service to the Community following the main principles of their code of conduct. All the Civil Guard members are committed to these principles when performing their daily duties.
As a State Security Force and as established under article 104.1 of the Spanish Constitution, the Civil Guard are entrusted with the mission of “protecting the free exercise of rights and freedoms and ensuring public order”.
Therefore, within the Constitutional framework, the Civil Guard members perform their tasks being absolutely impartial and politically neutral, without any kind of discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or ideology. Therefore, they treat the public in a correct and tactful manner, devoting their efforts to help and protect the public based on the laws and relying on the appropriate and adequate resources.
To that end, the Civil Guard employs 80,000 police officers deployed throughout the national territory, including the Spanish national waters. Also, their active participation in international missions worldwide is to be emphasized.
As for their distribution, the Zonas, or Regional Headquarters, represent the first territorial division and normally cover an Autonomous Region. These are, in turn, divided into Comandancias, or Provincial Headquarters that comprise an entire province or the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
The provincial headquarters, are also divided into Companies and these are divided into Stations, these being the smallest territorial units upon which the prevention, community policing and emergency intervention tasks rely. The Station covers one or several municipalities and, according to their tasks, they are divided into Main Stations, Ordinary Stations and Auxiliary Stations.
Thanks to this distribution, the Civil Guard is the State Institution with the largest representation along the Spanish territory.