Madrid - Spain is to open up archives from the era of the Franco dictatorship, the daily El Pais reported on Monday.

The country's Defence Ministry will open its military judicial archives from the era of right-wing leader Francisco Franco (1939-75) to the public.

The measure was expected to make it easier for the families of Franco's victims to seek the judicial annulment of sentences handed down after summary trials.

About 400,000 files dating from the aftermath of the 1936-39 civil war, which brought Franco to power, will be placed in a central archive, restored and digitalized, according to the daily.

Most of the files date from between 1938 and 1945, and are related to summary trials of Franco's alleged opponents, some of whom were executed on grounds as flimsy as a "confused ideology."

Judge Baltasar Garzon, who dropped an investigation into Franco's human rights abuses under pressure from prosecutors, estimated that 114,000 Franco opponents were killed after summary trials and in other kinds of reprisals during and after the civil war.

The new archive will make it easier for investigators to access the files, and for families of victims to seek the cancellation of sentences, the report said.

The Spanish judiciary has declined to repeal verdicts handed down to well-known Franco opponents such as the anarchists Joaquin Delgado, Francisco Granado and Salvador Puig Antich, who were executed in the 1960s and 70s.

The 2007 Law of Historic Memory, however, opened the door to the possibility of revising Francoist verdicts.

The law passed by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist government seeks to restore the honour of Franco's victims through measures such as granting them special certificates and removing Francoist symbols from public places.

The government watered down the law to avoid angering the conservative opposition, which accused the socialists of reopening old wounds.

One of the most controversial points of the law concerned the revision of Franco-era verdicts, with the government coming under criticism for not ordering the automatic cancellation of individual sentences. (dpa)