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- Title
Spain as a Democratic State Governed by the Rule of Law and the Catalan Secessionist Process.
- Authors
Ubillos, Juan María Bilbao
- Abstract
This work begins by recalling the characteristic features of the political system and model of territorial division of power established in the 1978 Spanish Constitution after a complicated but successful process of transition to democracy. Spain was constituted as a politically decentralized, social and democratic state governed by the rule of law, a compromise solution between the centralist tradition and the demands of peripheral nationalisms. Although this original formula has been progressively deployed with clearly positive results, it has come under threat from the challenge posed by the secessionist forces in Catalonia and the Basque Country, seriously endangering coexistence. In this regard, the work first analyses the Ibarretxe Plan, the confederal proposal of the president of the Basque government approved in 2004 by the Basque Parliament and rejected by the lower house of the Spanish Parliament. It then examines the most relevant sequences of the secessionist process that has unfolded in Catalonia over the last decade and which culminated in October 2017 in an illegal referendum and the unilateral declaration of independence approved by the regional parliament. It also analyses the response of Spanish institutions to attempts at constitutional rupture and its possible impact on the democratic quality of Spain and its reputation as a state governed by the rule of law.
- Subjects
CATALONIA (Spain); SPAIN; PAIS Vasco (Spain); RULE of law; POLITICAL systems; REPUTATION; REFERENDUM; LEGISLATIVE bodies
- Publication
Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 2024, Vol 16, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
1876-4045
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s40803-024-00207-6