A group of relevant lawyers coordinated by the professor in the administrative rights and the Betancor of this afternoon has the Memorial for the recovery of democratic normalitya Document that is born of the concern for the current institutional crisis and that is to serve as a “reminder of the obvious”: “That the parliament controls and legislates Clock;
Francesc de CarrerasProfessor of constitutional law, and Pablo de LoraProfessor in the philosophy of law, are exposed to a dialogue with Tancor the feeling of Memorial: Calling for “every citizen assumes that the Constitution is not defending itself alone.”
Together with them, the former president of the Constitutional Court and professor of Employment Law signed the document Francisco Pérez de Los Cobos; The former state -General of the State Consuelo MadrigalThe former president of the Court of Accounts María José de la Fuentethe ex-marops of the Constitutional Court Manuel Aragón and Jorge Rodríguez-Zapata; the former president of the National Commission of the Sebastián Albella stock market; and the professors Ignacio De-Picazo, Germán Fernández Farreres, Ángel Rojo, Eva Denta or Carlos Vidal, among others.
The date chosen for the presentation of the Memorial It is not indifferent: on June 19, eleven years ago, Felipe VI was named King. “That day symbolized the democratic normality and the power of our institutions. That spirit penetrates this Memorial. Is An alert call And a claim: we do not allow our institutions to wilt under the toxic slowness that converts the anti -democratic exception to a standard, “they say.
In his opinion, Spain is one Progressive Institutional Crisis. “It is not a sudden collapse,” they explain, “but a continuous erosion process, characterized by citizen distrust, partisan colonization of public bodies and the banization of political life.”
“Marketing has replaced deliberation; the image has moved the content; and parties, institutions that are called to represent interest and social values have left their substantial function to act as machines of election power, without a project or thinking structure,” they think.
For these lawyers, the constitutional democracy model is threatened by two disturbing and converguous political dynamics: the Partitocracy and populism.
Partitocracy “implies the need of the institutional system by political parties.” These “colonize” institutions, in particular those of control, manipulate legislative processes and subordinate technology and neutrality for their partisan interests.
“Public administration and regulatory authorities see their autonomy through partisan occupation, and the separation of powers is diluted in favor of a power concentration that is incompatible with constitutional logic,” they indicate
Populism is now presented as an “emotional direct democracy, whereby the leader embodies the supposed will of the people and rejects institutional intermediaries.”
Both processes “come together in the relegation of the democratic principle,” they point out. “Citizens, subject to information -over tax, induced by Unsprecedum Subsidized Media And exposed to wrong information in social networks, leaves institutional channels. “
The result is a representation crisis, they manifest themselves. “Institutions no longer succeed in articulating the popular will or to channel the political conflict”.
They believe that, in view of this situation, it is necessary to “restore democratic normality, what the constitutional is”: “Vivify institutions, strengthening citizen education, ensuring transparency in information, reforming the party system and a greater link between representatives and represented.”
“Citizenship,” they say, “must again be an active subject of power, not a passive client of the political show. Only it will only be possible to stop drifting to uninstitutionalization, to restore confidence in the democratic system and to retain freedom and equality as substantive purposes of the state.”
Corruption
He Memorial Also alert to corruption, one of the “most important vectors of institutional degeneration.” Not only because of the economic effects, but because “the trust of citizens in the power acting in their name.”
The discovery of corruption cases and their judicial confirmation “Not only does it not only cause the immediate dismissal of the affected termination, but it is also accompanied by accusations of Legislation Against the judiciary, the breaking of the essential principles of every democratic parliamentarism. “
According to the document, Parliament has lost the awareness of the legislation in favor of an executive power “That legislation based on the Decree Act with an excessive frequency”, using this exceptional figure as a normal channel of normative production based on the “denaturation” of the engaging budget “that the Constitutional Court has carried out.”
The “abuse” of accelerated legislative procedures is added (unique reading, urgency, commission process) and the inclusion of changes that are not related to the original text that drastically reduce “parliamentary deliberation”.
“It will be without time, without debate and, often, without prior control. The resulting rules are technically badIncreasingly, confusing and lacking a rigorous evaluation. The laws have become instrumental or symbolic, disadvantaged to the logic of political urgency, propaganda or the convenience of the moment. The ‘Bussy laws’ and the ‘Laws of the newspaper’ spread, full of heterogeneous, uncertain application and with little technical quality. Far from guaranteeing legal certainty, many generate a lawsuit, “they expose.
As far as justice is concerned, they claim that the “practical awareness” of judicial independence “was committed today.”
“The partisan interference in the General Council of the JudiciaryThe appointment system of the magistrates of the Constitutional Court and the growing polarization in the judicial bodies project a picture of dependence that is incompatible with public trust in justice, “they say.
They add that “the link with the government has resulted in a delegitimization of the attorney general due to customer practices and lack of objectivity, which requires urgent legal reform that requires reality, merit, merit, transparency and accountability.”
They also warn the need for one Deep reform of the jurisdiction of controversialBecause judicial control over the administration, “theoretically robust, is weakened by procedural barriers such as active identification, which has prevented politically sensitive decisions such as the grace of the process or the financing of external actions.”
In other cases, “judicial respect for administrative discretion has resulted in ineffective or symbolic sentences that hardly correct abuse and ultimately strengthen the feeling of impunity.”
“The Amnesty granted to Catalan Secessionists For now, it assumes the last confirmation of political intervention in an area that only corresponds to the court. Not only is equality violated before the law, but it cancel, a posteriori, judicial decisions based on the legitimate application of criminal legislation, as if it is a tyranny whose remains should be eradicated, “they say.
Judicial reforms
In his opinion, the announced reform of the access system to the judicial career, which causes strong protests in the judiciary, “increases restlessness by showing that the ‘relaxation’ of the technical preparation requirements is one of the paths to aggravate the criminal instructions and, as a result, the function of control.
On the market economy they point out that “the Increasing and often inefficient interventionism It has eroded the basis of the free initiative, to the point that the government intervenes important private companies. The State, which must act as a neutral regulator, tends to behave as an economic actor who disrupts the market with disproportionate measures, stifling load or ideological regulations. “
Another critical factor is the legal uncertaintythey indicate. “The normative inflation, the constant and unpredictable changes in the rules of the game, the low technical quality of laws and slowness and judicial unpredictability seriously influence the productive substance. Citizens and companies do not know what to keep, what the investment does not agree, discourages innovation and reducing competitiveness.”
He Memorial He concludes that the policy “should restore its institutional function, revise representation and promote a new citizen pact that prioritizing public interest over immediate profitability.”
“Without that reconstruction effort, the democratic state of the law runs the risk from the inside until it only becomes a facade of apparent legality outside the principles and values that characterize and support it. As history teaches us, it would be the inexorable path for its downfall,” they conclude.
