Spanish Constitution Course [Oppositions 2020]
With this free 17-lesson video course you will learn about the most important concepts of the Spanish Constitution
The Spanish Constitution of 1978 is the supreme norm of the Spanish legal system, to which all public authorities and citizens of Spain3 have been subject since its entry into force on 29 December 1978.
The Constitution was ratified in a referendum on December 6, 1978, being later sanctioned and promulgated by King Juan Carlos I on December 27 and published in the Official State Gazette on December 29 of the same year. The promulgation of the Constitution implied the culmination of the so-called transition to democracy, which took place as a result of the death, on November 20, 1975, of the previous head of state, the dictator General Franco, precipitating a series of political and historical events that transformed the previous dictatorial regime into a "social and democratic state of law that advocates freedom, freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism", as proclaimed in the first article of the Constitution.5 It also strengthens the principle of national sovereignty, which resides in the people,6 and establishes the parliamentary monarchy as a form of government.7 It also repeals, in the Repealing Provision (in its last pages), the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, approved in 1938 and modified on multiple occasions, the last of them in 1977 precisely to make way for democracy.
The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards, and establishes a territorial organisation based on the autonomy of municipalities, provinces and autonomous communities,8 with the principle of solidarity governing between them.910 After the process of formation of the State of the Autonomies, the autonomous communities enjoyed an autonomy of a political nature that configured Spain as an autonomous State. 1 Local entities, such as municipalities and provinces, enjoy autonomy of an administrative nature, and their institutions act in accordance with criteria of opportunity within the legal framework established by the State and the Autonomous Communities.12
The king is the head of state, symbol of its unity and permanence, arbitrates and moderates the regular functioning of the institutions, assumes the highest representation of the Spanish State in international relations, especially with the nations of its historical community, and exercises the functions expressly attributed to him by the Constitution and the laws.13 His acts are of a regulated nature, whose validity depends on the endorsement of the competent authority which, as the case may be, is the President of the Government, the President of the Congress of Deputies, or a minister.14
The constitutional text establishes the separation of functions (not to be confused with the separation of powers, a fundamental idea of liberal thought).15 Basically, national sovereignty allows the election, by universal suffrage (men and women, over 18 years of age),16 of the representatives of the sovereign people in the Cortes Generales, configured in the form of an asymmetrical bicameralism, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. Both chambers share legislative power, although there is a preponderance of the Congress of Deputies, which is also exclusively responsible for the investiture of the President of the Government and his eventual dismissal by motion of censure or question of confidence. However, both the Congress and the Senate exercise a task of political control over the Government through parliamentary questions and interpellations.
The Government, whose President is invested by the Congress of Deputies, directs the executive branch, including the public administration. The members of the Government are appointed by the President and, together with him, make up the Council of Ministers, a collegiate body that occupies the apex of executive power. The Government is jointly and severally liable for his political action before the Congress of Deputies,17 which, if necessary, can dismiss him en bloc by means of a motion of censure.
Judicial power is vested in the judges and courts of justice, and the General Council of the Judiciary is their highest governing body. The Constitutional Court controls that the laws and actions of the public administration are in accordance with the supreme norm.
