Abstract
In this chapter, I briefly recall the effects of Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010 upon the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia in the area of competences and then, having focused the question thus, I analyse the activity developed in this sphere during the first year following the Ruling by legislators—state and autonomous-community—and by the Constitutional Court.
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Notes
- 1.
Paradigmatic, even for the incomprehensibility of its content, is legal basis 22 regarding the obligation of linguistic availability imposed upon companies in their relations with users and consumers. Unclear too is the practical scope that should be given to exceptions to equality in treatment of languages and to the citizens’ right to linguistic choice of legal basis 23. Clear to me appears the interpretation, favourable to constitutionality, of the right to use Catalan before constitutional bodies located outside Catalonia, however, the blatant non-application to date of this doctrine perhaps reveals too a certain difficulty in interpreting this legal basis 21.
- 2.
Viver (2011), pp. 363–399.
- 3.
As sole exception, without a doubt partial, one could perhaps quote, in relation to ruling 30/2011 and the Statute of Andalusia and specifically the management of the River Guadalquivir, the entrusting of management to the Government of Andalusia of some non-decision-making executive competences (the mandate is effected via an agreement announced in the Official State Bulletin (BOE) of 7 July 2011 and extended via a resolution published in the BOE of November 7 of the same year).
- 4.
Some documents related to this monitoring may be found on the Institute web: http://www10.gencat.net/drep/AppJava/ambit.
- 5.
There are numerous examples. Some rules occupy dozens of pages of the BOE (see the documents referred to in the previous note).
- 6.
Still relevant regarding this issue is Manuel Carrasco’s book, The distribution of competences between the state and the Autonomous Communities with regard to economic activity, Ed Tirant Lo Blanch-Institut d’estudis Autonòmics, 2005.
- 7.
On this problem see also Carles Viver La cláusula competencial de l’artículo 149.1.1 CE en Autonomia i Justícia a Catalunya, Consell Consultiu de la Generalitat de Catalunya 2004.
- 8.
One of many examples is that constituted by the subsidies of the Secretary General of Social Policy and Consumer Affairs, which, in the absence of other areas of competence, is always based on 149.1.1 of the Spanish Constitution (for all Order SPI/1166/2011, of April 28), which approved the regulatory principles of the concession of subsidies subject to the general system of subsidies of the Secretary General of Social Policy and Consumer Affairs.
- 9.
On this question see the recent book by Torres (2011).
- 10.
From this pespective and from the increasingly less respect that the European Union shows towards the principle of internal institutional neutrality, see Royal Decree 1715/2010, of December 17, which designates the National Accreditation Agency (ENAC) as national accreditation body in accordance with what is established by Regulation (EC) number 765/2008 of the European Parliament and the Council.
- 11.
With a few specific exceptions such as the legislative proposal for popular consultation “by means other than referéndum.”
- 12.
See Viver (2011), pp. 390–395, ob.cit.
- 13.
By magistrates Javier Delgado Barrio and Manuel Aragón Reyes against ruling 137/2011.
- 14.
It is clear that in our system the State has competences with regard to different areas of the legal system—for example, those of Articles 149.1 6 and 7—which enable it to guarantee in these spheres the definitive unity of the legal system and it is also true that legal doctrine usually constructs its proposals via the construction of concepts drawn from the systematic analysis of specific precepts to deduce from the constructed in this way specific new regulations. However, courts should be particularly prudent when performing this kind of construction and in the case analysed here there are elements in the block of constitutionality—lists of competences, literal tenor of the constitutional clauses that regulate relations between the “general” state system and the autonomous systems…—which lead one to question the solidity of the dogmatic construction employed by the Court when deducing from the concept of unitary state the specific conclusions it proposes.
References
Aida Torres, La projecció de la potestad subvencional sobre la distribución competencial. Anàlisi de la pràctica estatal. Institut d’Estudis Autonòmics, Barcelona, 2011
Viver C. “El Tribunal Constitucional, ¿’sempre, només …i indiscutible’? La funció constitucional dels estatuts en l’ámbit de la distribució de competències segons la STC 31/2010,” Revista d’estudis autonòmics i federals, 12, (2011) 363-399. There is a Spanish version in Revista Española de Derecho Consittucional, 91, (2011) 319-351
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Pi-Sunyer, C.V. (2013). The Distribution of Competences in Spain a Year After the Ruling 31/2010 of the Constitutional Court: The Reaffirmation of the Unitary State?. In: López Basaguren, A., Escajedo San Epifanio, L. (eds) The Ways of Federalism in Western Countries and the Horizons of Territorial Autonomy in Spain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27720-7_30
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