Constitutionalists advocate recovering the constituent consensus to face the challenges of the democratic system

Protagonists of the Transition, foreign Hispanists, historians and constitutionalists, reflected on what constituent concord meant and on the need to recover the spirit of understanding to address current challenges. It was in the framework of the congress International: Constitution and Concord, under the direction of the professors of the School of Law, Ángel J. Gómez Montoro, and Fernando Simón Yarza, which was held on October 17 and 18 in the campus of the University in Madrid and the congress of the Deputies. The congress is funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

lecture The inaugural position was given by Miquel Roca Junyent, speaker of the Constitution, who made a strong defense of the constitutional text and the need for compromise to ensure the harmonious progress of societies. He also narrated numerous personal anecdotes and examples of the constituent era that show the essential importance of the spirit of respect and recognition of the adversary in politics.

Next, the constituent deputy and member of the Constitutional Commission of congress, Óscar Alzaga, and the former president of the Senate, Juan José Laborda, took part. From different perspectives, both made a historical analysis of the factors that made constitutional democracy possible in Spain, and also warned of the risks involved in the current polarization.

Hispanists Benoît Pellistrandi, Full Professor of the Licée Condorcet in Paris, and Jan Mlčoch, of the University of Ostrava (Czech Republic) examined the European perspective on the Transition. Both agreed on the highly positive assessment of what that historic moment meant in terms of understanding and reconciliation and regretted the revisionist attempts of those who, in recent years, have tried to distort its meaning.

The territorial issue

The second workshop was held at the Constitutional conference room of the congress de los Diputados. The first round table focused on the basic aspects of the form of the State, especially on the territorial question and the Head of State. Professor Pablo Pérez López, Full Professor of Contemporary History of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University contrasted the positive elements of the great constituent consensus with the discord introduced by some later decisions. Professor Gema Pérez Herrera, from the University of Valladolid, rescued an unpublished report of the constitutional speaker , José Pedro Pérez Llorca, in which he diagnosed the problems of the so-called territorial question. To the territorial question was also dedicated the discussion paper of the Senior Associate Professor of Constitutional Law of the University of Cantabria, Josu de Miguel. The round table concluded with a presentation of the Full Professor of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Enrique Belda, who addressed the legal importance of the Monarchy for our constitutional system and spoke about the most recent legal discussions on its regulation.

The second panel focused on the constitutional articulation of the three branches of government and the consensus educational of the Constitution. Piedad García-Escudero, Professor Emeritus of the Complutense University of Madrid and Counsel of the Spanish Parliament, spoke about the challenges of our parliamentary system. Isabel Giménez Sánchez, professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, dedicated her discussion paper to the parliamentary trust of the Government. Fernando Simón Yarza, Full Professor at the University of Navarra, vindicated the constitutionalmodel of government of the Judicial Power as opposed to other foreign systems which are difficult to apply in our country. Ángel J. Gómez Montoro, also Full Professor of Constitutional Law, claimed the return to the constitutional consensus in subject education. He stressed that the constitutional treatment of the Education was not the result of a false compromise between irreconcilable positions, but of a complex agreement , which enabled a model in which very diverse perspectives found full protection.

The closing lecture of congress was given by the constitutionalist Manuel Aragón Reyes, position , Full Professor emeritus of Constitutional Law and emeritus magistrate of the Constitutional Court. Under the title degree scroll Institutional loyalty and constitutional concord, Aragón highlighted the political and social attitudes that keep civic freedom alive. He wanted to emphasize that, just as "the Law only helps those who watch, and not those who sleep", political freedom is only preserved by those who are attentive to watching over it.