The challenges of the parliamentary monarchy in Spain
adapting to the times without renouncing its symbolic historical meaning and its constitutional legitimizing essence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71206/rapc.129Keywords:
Crown, monarchy, Parliament, History, parliamentary monarchy, Constitution, rationalization, modernization, updatingAbstract
This issue begins with a historical analysis of the concept of parliamentary monarchy, as the last stage in the evolution of the monarchy. Thus it is found that the existing parliamentary monarchy was a previous concept for constituent in 1978, but it actually had no history in Spain, where the monarchy was constitutional in all nineteenth-century precedents. With these parameters, the text performs a constitutional analysis of the basic regulations of the Crown, and especially the position and functions of the king. This analysis shows that it is the Constitution which establishes the parliamentary monarchy, and its source of legitimacy, and that the constituent adopted this policy because it was the only option to keep the monarchy in a fully democratic system by its rationalization. History plays a triple role in the Spanish parliamentary monarchy: 1) Founding or explanatory (but not legitimizing); 2) interpretation of the constitutional provisions, by way of background, or complementing their gaps by constitutional traditions; 3) dynamic, since it requires an evolutionary perspective. This idea allows us to understand that the Spanish parliamentary monarchy has to meet the challenges of the present and the future, requiring intensify its rationalization and renewal. The constitutional rationalization involved incorporating a democratic constitutional monarchy system, separating the crown of the branches of government and political decision-making; but there remained the full exercise of constitutional values within the monarchic institution. Thus in recent times various reforms or applicative adaptations to intensify that force, will be needed. It is for example to eliminate exceptions to the principle of equality and rights, restrictive interpretation of the prerogatives of monarch and members of the Royal Family, and enhance transparency and bringing the institution to citizens. In short, it´s necessary to update monarchy preserving its essence.
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