A Constitution for Coexistence (Spain 1978)

From Transition to Constitution

The 1978 Constitution was the result of a historic process called the “transition”. Since Franco’s death in 1975 until the promulgation of the Constitution in 1978 a certain amount of time passed which marked the leap from dictatorship to democracy, from a non-democratic political system to a democratic one. This movement from one political system to another one received the name “transition” because it didn’t happen through political reform. The protagonists of the period debated between three possible solutions:

Involution, mantaining the principles of the former system.

Revolution, breaking with everything in order to create a new system.

Reform,Reform,, a progressive change from one system to another.

Although the term “transition” is used to name the political period, it actually describes all the political, legal, social and cultural changes. All these changes led to a process whose result was the constitutional text.

The process began some months before Franco’s death, after the assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco (13th of December 1973), when the new president, Carlos Arias Navarro made a political speech proclaiming that social conditions in Spain had changed. The legal predictions of the Fundamental Laws (former regime) had ignored political realities (expectations of change). Although it was said that “everything was well tied down”, the Fundamental Laws were unclear and open to interpretation. Arias Navarro said that the former political system was based on joining things together and the new one on participation.

The new government consolidated the expectations of change when the law on local administration was enacted. It accepted, without exception, universal suffrage and a decree law of association that would be tolerant to organised groups. Until then associations were not defined as the exercising of a citizen's right, rather they were a means of political control.

After Franco’s death on the 22nd of December 1975, the Parliament and the Council of the Kingdom met in order to constitutionally proclaim the King. After the changes that followed Franco’s death, the government of Arias Navarro suffered a crisis, which saw Adolfo Suárez González come in as the new president. A new strategy appeared in which a fundamental law was substituted by the authorities and new instruments (Parliament, Referendum) that could be presented as the will of the nation were created. On the 15th of December 1976 the Law for Political Reform was brought to referendum. This was a decisive instrument of the political transition because:

- The people became a decisive element of political reform.

- The parliament would be a representative organ and have two chambers that would write the new constitution.

- A pluralist system of parties was established and for the Constituent Parliamentary elections, held the 15th of June 1977, a new system was established.

ACTIVITIES:

1. Define the "transition" in your own words.

2. Look for more information about the "personalities" mentioned on this page.