Abstract
The proposal and passage of multiple subject bills containing unrelated measures has always been condemned as a legislative perversion. This practice, however, seems to be fairly resistant to criticism in a number of countries, where political expediency prevails over arguments of legislative method and due process of lawmaking, and where courts—in absence of explicit constitutional restrictions—are reluctant to set limits on omnibus laws. Spain is a case in point: as the Constitutional Court has recalled, the Spanish Constitution poses “no obstacle precluding or limiting the inclusion of a host of heterogeneous normative measures into a single legislative text”—a doctrine which also applies to decree-laws issued by the Cabinet. This chapter reviews the background, justification and implications of this judicial approach, and discusses to what extent it is actually defensible. After some preliminary remarks on the single subject dogma, I begin with a brief survey of the recent Spanish experience in this area (starting from the abuse of budget laws as a multipurpose regulatory tool in the 1980s). Thereafter I concentrate on the latest constitutional case law dealing with the problem of disparate legislative contents. Two distinct, albeit interwoven issues will be considered: on the one hand, the legal feasibility of multiple subject statutes, which the Constitutional Court has repeatedly affirmed when reviewing budget accompanying laws and government’s urgency legislation; on the other, the somewhat loose ban the Court has established on “unconnected amendments” or riders. In the final sections I try to draw a couple of lessons from the Spanish experience, and offer a conjecture which deviates from the usual scholarly plea for adding constraints on multiple subject bills to the parliamentary standing orders: perhaps the vicious circle of omnibus lawmaking in Spain—political expediency, doctrinal condemnation, judicial indulgence—might be escaped through semi-substantive constitutional review standards that focus on the process of legislative justification.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The problem of how the subject of a bill should be identified precedes the problem of whether the subject qualifies as single or multiple, and of whether a given provision (or amendment) is, or is not, linked to this subject.
- 3.
On constitutive and regulative norms, see e.g. Atienza and Ruiz Manero (2000, p. 69 ff. and p. 107 n. 4).
- 4.
For example, the functionality or effectiveness of the parliamentary processing of bills is usually invoked to justify single subject requirements on citizens’ initiatives.
- 5.
See e.g. Abelenda (2012) or Sanguinetti (2017); cf. also Luce (1922, pp. 548–549). On the rationale underlying single subject rules in the U.S., see Gilbert (2006, p. 813 ff.), or Cooter and Gilbert (2010, p. 687 ff.); cf. also Giménez (2008, pp. 543–544), highlighting the different justification of limitations on appropriation riders in the U.S. and Europe; for the French case, see e.g. Chamussy (2013) or Déchaux (2008), as well as Olivier Rozenberg’s piece in this volume.
- 6.
On the under- and over-inclusiveness of the single subject rule in the light of its underlying purposes, see Gilbert (2006, pp. 829–830).
- 7.
- 8.
See e.g. Art. 101.1 and Art. 107.1 of the Standing Orders of the Catalonian Parliament.
- 9.
Art. 5.2(c) of the Popular Legislative Initiative Act (Ley Orgánica 3/1984).
- 10.
In what follows, I confine myself to national legislation. On the constitutional review of regional omnibus laws, see e.g. Delgado (2016, p. 248 ff.), Martínez Lago (2016, pp. 32–33), Nogueira (2018, p. 1088 ff.), or Ripollés (2020, p. 379 ff.). Neither shall I consider the recent series of rulings the Constitutional Court has delivered on the procedural flaws incurred by the (bare separatist majority in the) Catalonian Parliament when passing pro-independentism legislation.
- 11.
According to the CE, the State budget “shall include the entire expenditure and income of the State public sector” and indicate “the amount corresponding to fiscal benefits” that relate to State taxes (Art. 134.2); the budget law “may not establish new taxes”, and may modify them only if a previous tax law provides for such a possibility (Art. 134.7).
- 12.
Judgment 76/1992 (Ground 4.a); cf. also Judgments 195/1994 (Ground 2) or 206/2013 (Ground 2.b).
- 13.
- 14.
Which impaired parliamentary deliberation on both budgetary and non-budgetary issues (Giménez 2008, p. 563).
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
See also Martínez Lago (2016, p. 25 ff.); cf. recently the TC judgements 122/2018 and STC 99/2018.
- 18.
For a painteresque variety of legislative absurdities in this context, see Zarraluqui (2012).
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
See Rubio Llorente (2006).
- 22.
- 23.
For an overview, see e.g. Mercader (2007 and 2014). In Spain, the Act on effective equality between men and women (Ley Orgánica 3/2007) and the Act on measures for a comprehensive protection against gender violence (Ley Orgánica 1/2004) affect most areas of social life and include a host of measures operating throughout the whole legal order. While their underlying purpose was largely welcome, the objection that these laws encroach upon the principle of legal security has been widespread. Both laws may be seen as “super-statutes”—Eskridge and Ferejohn (2001, p. 1216) characterise a super-statute as “a law or series of laws that (1) seeks to establish a new normative or institutional framework for state policy and (2) over time does “stick” in the public culture such that (3) the super-statute and its institutional or normative principles have a broad effect on the law – including an effect beyond the four corners of the statute”.
- 24.
The “omnibus series” includes, among others, the Judgments 176/2011, 120/2012, 209/2012, 36/2013, 132/2013, 120/2014, or 59/2015. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations in this section are taken from the Judgment 136/2011.
- 25.
Given that accompanying laws were intendedly—and openly—utilized to evade the 1992 ruling on the permissible content of budget laws, some scholars maintained that legislators had incurred a “constitutional fraud” in the sense of the classic “fraud in law” doctrine, and that, given that accompanying laws were functionally connected to budget laws, the same constraints imposed on the latter should be imposed on the former. Yet, budgetary provisions in the CE do not mention accompanying laws and far less ascribe any function to them, so that such a construction could not succeed as a constitutional argument. While not entirely abandoned, the fraud argument was soon pushed to the background. See extensively Moreno (2004, p. 473 ff.), as well as Martínez Lago (2015).
- 26.
Judgment 136/2011 (Ground 3); see also Judgment 176/2011 (Ground 2.a).
- 27.
Art. 9.3 CE states: “the Constitution guarantees the legality principle, (…) the publicity of norms, the certainty of law (seguridad jurídica), (…) the accountability of public authorities and the ban on their arbitrariness”.
- 28.
- 29.
According to Art. 23 of the Constitution, citizens are granted the right “to participate in public affairs, directly or through freely elected representatives” and the right to equal eligibility for public office. The TC has persistently affirmed that there exists a direct connection between the citizens’ and the MPs’ rights recognised in this article, for “it is primordially the political representatives who effectively realize the citizens’ right to participate in public affairs”; both rights “would be deprived from substance” and “rendered ineffective” if MPs could not adequately exercise their constitutional functions (thus e.g. Judgments 202/2014, Ground 3; 1/2015, Ground 3; or 94/2018, Ground 4). See further Arruego (2005, p. 193 ff.) or García-Escudero (2011, p. 214 ff.).
- 30.
See already Judgment 99/1987 (Ground 1.a), where lawmaking procedures and rules are deemed “instrumental” in realising political pluralism as one of the highest values of the legal order (Art. 1 CE); see also Judgment 103/2008 (Ground 5) and Justice Aragón’s dissenting opinion to the Judgment 136/2011 (paragraph 3).
- 31.
See further Martínez Lago (2016, p. 59 ff.)
- 32.
See Judgment 136/2011 (Ground 5), as well as Judgments 176/2011 (Ground 2.c) and 209/2012 (Ground 2).
- 33.
Judgment 136/2011 (Ground 10): “only the most egregious vices or flaws” which “essentially impair” the formation of the MPs’ will are capable of provoking such “a democratic deficit in the norm-making process” that “might lead to a pronouncement of unconstitutionality”. Cf. also Judgment 176/2011 (Ground 4) and, in general, Judgment 99/1987 (Ground 1). See further Fernández-Fontecha (2013, p. 106 ff.).
- 34.
Judgment 136/2011 (Ground 10, as well as Facts 11–12, with both the Congress and the State lawyers submitting that not even the simplest breach of the standing orders could be identified). See also 176/2011 (Ground 2.f).
- 35.
See Judgment 136/2011 (Grounds 9, 10 and 3), stressing that “the political assessment” of legislative decisions has no bearing on the evaluation of their unconstitutionality, which only responds to “strictly legal criteria” derived from explicit or implicit constitutional norms; although urgently-passed omnibus bills might “somehow” affect the right to political participation, the “eventual existence of such an affection” has not proven to be “substantial” nor diminished the democratic legitimacy of the enacted law—a law, the Court added, that may possibly be questionable from a legistic viewpoint, but is by no means objectionable from a constitutional perspective (Ground 3).
- 36.
- 37.
While not denying the significance of the majority rule, Justice Aragón reproached the Court for failing to distinguish between the adoption of decisions by majoritarian voting and the democratic exigencies on the previous deliberative process. Cf. also Martínez Lago (2016, pp. 53–54).
- 38.
As García-Escudero (2016, p. 128 n. 68; and 2013, p. 221 n. 62) notes, the TC had previously accepted that decree-laws “habitually” have a “heterogeneous content”, and that this poses no legal security problems in view of the “current means available to find out” official legal information (Judgment 332/2005, Ground 17). Cf. Aragón (2016, p. 101 ff.).
- 39.
- 40.
Judgment 199/2015 (Ground 3, italics added). The Court did not find “any obstacle whatsoever” to apply its doctrine on omnibus parliamentary laws to omnibus decree-laws: again, it was insisted that, although such decree-laws may reveal “a deficient normative technique”, the Court must only be concerned with their constitutionality, not with their “technical quality”; and that “nothing in the constitutional text” prohibits decree-laws containing “heterogeneous normative measures”—as long as these do not affect those matters excluded by Art. 86 of the CE.
- 41.
Judgment 199/2015 (Ground 5).
- 42.
Judgment 199/2015 (Grounds 5, 9 and 10). See also Judgment 211/2015 (Ground 7), as well as García-Escudero (2016, p. 151), stressing that the Court, while recognizing that the MPs’ ius in officium stretches to the validation debate in Congress, does not take this right to cover the claim to a thorough debate of the decree-law (such a claim would only be justified if, after its validation, the decree-law is eventually processed as a regular government bill).
- 43.
See, for instance, Judgments 170/2012 (dissenting opinion of F. Valdés Dal-Ré); 12/2015 (dissenting opinions of F. Valdés Dal-Ré and L.I. Ortega); 48/2015 (dissenting opinion of F. Valdés Dal-Ré); or 139/2016 (joint dissenting opinion of F. Valdés Dal-Ré and A. Asúa; and dissenting opinion of J.A. Xiol); cf. also, more recently, Judgment 61/2018 (joint dissenting opinion of F. Valdés Dal-Ré, C. Conde-Pumpido and M.L. Balaguer).
- 44.
Cf. Aragón (2016, p. 135 ff.). As has been observed, the Court inclines to accept as extraordinary and urgent whatever the Cabinet considers to be extraordinary and urgent (García Majado 2017, p. 235, offering examples of blatantly non-extraordinary and non-urgent issues that have been regulated by decree-laws over the last years). Cf. however e.g. Judgment 211/2015 (Ground 7).
- 45.
Judgment 199/2015 (dissenting opinion of A. Asúa, F. Valdés Dal-Ré and J.A. Xiol Ríos).
- 46.
Writing in personal capacity, former TC Justice Aragón (2016, p. 111 ff.) entirely adhered to the dissenting opinion, except for this point: in his view, a multiple situation of emergency should be addressed, rather, by separated, single-subject decree-laws, not by an omnibus one.
- 47.
See e.g. Art. 84 (amendments affecting a previous legislative delegation) or Art 134.6 (amendments impacting on the State budget) of the Spanish Constitution, as well as Art. 107 of the Standing Orders of the Catalonian Parliament.
- 48.
- 49.
See Judgment 194/2000 (Ground 3), where the Court nevertheless pointed out the secondary constitutional position of the Senate vis-à-vis the Congress, and conceded that “reasons of technical correction and good governance of the legislative procedure” make it advisable for senators not to sponsor “important innovations” in the bills.
- 50.
The original, one-article bill had been submitted by the Cabinet as a supplement to the 2003 Arbitration Act.
- 51.
Debate minutes are available at: www.congreso.es (Congress Journal, VII Session, no. 307, Plenum, 18 December 2003, p. 16231 ff.). All parties in the Congress, apart from the one supporting the conservative government, abstained from even taking part in the voting (see further García-Escudero 2016, p. 101 ff.; 2010, pp. 72–73).
- 52.
Except for five senators who had not formally objected to the amendment motion when it was admitted by the Bureau.
- 53.
All three offences had already been derogated by the Criminal Code Modification Act of 2005 (in 2004 a socialist government succeeded the conservative one, which sponsored the amendment).
- 54.
Judgment 119/2011 (Grounds 6 and 7). See further Santaolalla (2011, pp. 147–148; cf. also pp. 140–142 and pp. 153–154).
- 55.
Judgment 119/2011 (Ground 6). See further Judgments 27/1981 (Ground 2) and 274/2000 (Ground 4).
- 56.
Judgment 119/2011 (Ground 7).
- 57.
- 58.
See e.g. Judgments 209/2012, 324/2014, 59/2015, 216/2015 or 155/2017, and, for a recap of the TC case law, Judgment 4/2018 (Grounds 3, 4 and 5). After the Bureau of the Senate started checking for a minimal substantial link between amendments and bills, the TC has established a (defeasible) “presumption of coherence or homogeneity” in favor of any amendment motion admitted by the Bureau (Judgment 59/2015, Ground 6.a). Cf. Escuin (2018, p. 206 ff.), noting the relaxation of the latest constitutional case law on unconnected amendments. On the review of the so-called “transactional amendments”, see García-Escudero (2013, p. 209 ff.; 2016, p. 107 ff.).
- 59.
Judgment 59/2015 (Ground 5).
- 60.
On the undeclared, albeit easily identifiable reluctance of the TC to void provisions resulting from riders, see recently Escuin (2018, p. 110 ff.). As for the general problem of what legal consequences should be attributed to the neglect of single-subject requirements, see Santaolalla (2011, p. 139); cf. also Gilbert (2006, p. 828 ff.).
- 61.
In his dissenting opinion to the Judgment 136/2011, Justice Aragón heavily criticised this (see especially paragraph 4). Cf. also Martínez Lago (2016, pp. 55–57), as well as Santaolalla (2011, p. 159), noting that the search for homogeneity in an extremely chaotic statute is as pointless as checking for connections between its subject and its amendments.
- 62.
Thus, e.g., Judgment 209/2012 (Ground 4.b), stating that the requisite link between the amendment and the omnibus bill must be “flexibly” understood and “relativized” depending on the importance of the amendment—this criterion has also served to uphold unrelated measures in budget laws (Moreno 2005, p. 33, commenting on the Judgment 34/2005).
- 63.
Judgment 76/1992 (dissenting opinion of L. López Guerra). In that case, Justice López Guerra challenged the Court’s doctrine on the non-permissible contents of budget laws for effecting an “unjustified”, “constitutionally unwarranted” limitation on the Parliament’s general legislative power; provided that the CE has granted this power in “universal and unlimited” terms, “any restriction on its exercise must” be based on an explicit constitutional provision or “directly and unambiguously derived from the constitutional text”. Compare this position with Justice Aragón’s dissenting opinion to the Judgment 136/2011, where budget accompanying laws are deemed unconstitutional for contravening implicit “structural principles” which are “deductible” from the Spanish “democratic and parliamentary system” (Judgment 136/2011, dissenting opinion of M. Aragón, paragraph 3).
- 64.
As discussed above in Sect. 3, until today the Court has not applied any “implicit” constitutional restriction on omnibus legislation—nevertheless, it has at least mentioned this possibility (see e.g. Judgment 136/2011, Ground 3).
- 65.
As quoted in Judgment 136/2011 (Grounds 3 and 9), “the assessment of constitutionality is not one of legislative technique” (Judgment 109/1987, Ground 3; Judgment 195/1996, Ground 4): taking stance “on the technical perfection” or quality of laws is beyond the TC’s competences, given that “the constitutional control of legislation has nothing to do with its technical depuration” (Judgment 226/199, Ground 4); the “democratic legislator”, in sum, can produce technically flawed laws, and the poor technical quality of legislation has “no relevancy” in “strictly” constitutional terms. Along the omnibus series, the Court often wonders whether the appellants had submitted a proper “allegation of unconstitutionality” or “just made a critique of the inadequate legislative technique” (thus e.g. Judgment 120/2012, Ground 3). Cf. Supreme Court Judgment 411/2003 (Grounds 3 and 6), noting that the TC often recalls how important a good legistic technique is to promote legal security and certainty, but does it “on the level of principles”, whereas, “when it comes to resolving concrete cases”, the TC inclines to consider “legistic problems” as “alien to the law”.
- 66.
In that they imply what the Court denies—namely, that legislative technique is constitutionally relevant (Judgment 136/2011, concurring opinion of L. Ortega).
- 67.
See Gascón (2006, p. 49): legistic flaws are “gradual” and may trigger “more or less severe” responses, ranging from a purely censorial to a properly legal “disqualification” or invalidation of the affected provision.
- 68.
- 69.
Yet, such a juxtaposition often hampers the parliamentary examination of the law, which might arguably weaken its presumed constitutional legitimacy and hence the deference owed to it as the result of a democratic lawmaking process.
- 70.
In this vein e.g. Martínez Lago (2015); see also Justice Aragón’s dissenting vote to the Judgment 136/2011.
- 71.
See Judgment 136/2011 (Fact 9, Senate lawyer’s submission).
- 72.
See Supreme Court Judgment 411/2003 (Ground 3); cf. above notes 16 and 64, and Sect. 7 below. Notwithstanding, the Senate’s lawyer delved quite extensively into the constitutional notion of law (ley) in the light of the democratic principle—as he did shortly afterwards in Fernández-Fontecha (2013, p. 94 ff.). Cf. also Dodek (2016, p. 31 ff.), and Moreno Fernández (2016, p. 80 ff.)
- 73.
See e.g. Judgments 99/1987 (Ground 1) or 103/2008 (Ground 5).
- 74.
On the TC’s approach to the interna corporis acta, see further Fernández-Fontecha (2013, p. 83 ff. and p. 106 ff.).
- 75.
Cf. also Giménez (2008, p. 561), leaning on the TC Judgment 76/1990 (Ground 8) to suggest that, even if gross legistic flaws need not necessarily result in the invalidation of legislation, they should certainly be considered as an “aggravating element”, i.e. a factor that counts against upholding it.
- 76.
In the Judgment 136/2011, both the majority (Ground 11) and the dissenter agreed, in the abstract, that “substantial” affections lead to unconstitutionality, but they disagreed on the intensity of the affection in the concrete case—only the dissenter argued about it. Nonetheless, in the Judgment 119/2011 (Ground 9) the Court, when assessing the interference with representation rights (Art. 23 CE), considered that the last minute senatorial rider appending criminal offences to a bill on arbitration was not “idle” (inane), and effected a substantial impairment of the MPs’ legislative faculties.
- 77.
As the aforementioned Supreme Court’s Judgment 411/2003 (Ground 3) noted, yet with regard to the legal security principle, “it is upon a specific examination of the content and the circumstances of the challenged regulation that we have to resolve the (…) doubts of unconstitutionality” it may pose (my italics).
- 78.
- 79.
Supreme Court Judgment 411/2003 (Grounds 8–9), noting as well that the scrutiny “cannot be equally intensive for all norms”, because the extent to which legal security is compromised depends on the specific features of the norms at stake, on the surrounding social realities, or on the impact on citizens’ lives. Cf. also Giménez (2008, pp. 559–560), stressing the sensitiveness of tax norms in this connection; and Sánchez (2019, pp. 398 ff. and 405 ff.).
- 80.
- 81.
Cf. the dissenting vote to the TC Judgment 136/2011, where Justice Aragón denied that reasons of “efficacy” can justify the “constitutionally fraudulent practice” of inserting totally unconnected amendments into bills.
- 82.
For an overview, see e.g. Portocarrero (2016).
- 83.
Cf. also García-Escudero (2016, pp. 144 and 146), pleading for a better legislative justification in the light of both the principle of legal security and the constitutional ban on arbitrariness.
References
Abelenda V (2012) Rogatio y aprobación de leges per saturam. In: Falchi GL, Iaccarino A (eds) Legittimazione e limiti degli ordinamenti giuridici. Pontificia Università Lateranense, Città del Vaticano, pp 85–97
Aragón M (2016) Uso y abuso del decreto-ley. Iustel, Madrid
Arruego G (2005) Representación política y derecho fundamental. CEPC, Madrid
Atienza M, Ruiz Manero J (2000) Las piezas del derecho, 2nd edn. Ariel, Barcelona. [A theory of legal sentences. Kluwer, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1998]
Cazorla LM (1997) Características de las llamadas leyes de acompañamiento presupuestario desde el punto de vista del ejercicio de la función legislativa de las Cortes Generales. Corts (Anuario de Derecho Parlamentario) 4:107–125
Cazorla LM (1998) Las llamadas leyes de acompañamiento presupuestario. Marcial Pons, Madrid
Chamussy D (2013) La procédure parlementaire et le Conseil constitutionnel. Nouveaux Cahiers du Conseil Constitutionnel 38:1–20
Cooter RD, Gilbert MD (2010) A theory of direct democracy and the single subject rule. Columbia Law Rev 110:687–730
Déchaux R (2008) L’évolution de la jurisprudence constitutionnelle en matière de “cavaliers” entre 1996 et 2006, retrieved from www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr
Delgado D (2016) Crisis económica y técnica legislativa. Revista de las Cortes Generales 99:239–258
Dodek AM (2016) Omnibus bills: constitutional constraints and legislative liberations. Revue de Droit d’Ottawa – Ottawa Law Rev 48(1):1–42
Enériz FJ (2014) La persistencia del legislador en no respetar los límites materiales de las Leyes Generales de Presupuestos de Estado. Revista Aranzadi Doctrinal 1:1–22
Escuin C (2018) El juego entre la mayoría y las minorías parlamentarias en la elaboración de las leyes. Corts – Anuario de Derecho Parlamentario 31:197–212
Eskridge W, Ferejohn J (2001) Super-statutes. Duke Law Journal 50:1215–1276
Fernández TR (1998) De la arbitrariedad del legislador. Civitas, Madrid
Fernández-Fontecha M (2013) Teoría y jurisprudencia parlamentaria. Cortes Generales, Madrid
García Majado P (2017) Del uso al abuso: el decreto-ley en la España democrática. Diálogos jurídicos 2:217–244
García-Escudero P (2010) Seguridad jurídica y técnica legislativa. Thomson-Aranzadi, Cizur Menor
García-Escudero P (2011) El parlamentario individual en un parlamento de grupos: la participación en la función legislativa. Teoría y realidad constitucional 28:205–242
García-Escudero P (2013) De enmiendas homogéneas, leyes heterogéneas y preceptos intrusos. Teoría y realidad constitucional 31:199–236
García-Escudero P (2016) Homogeneidad de enmiendas e iniciativas legislativas. In: La última jurisprudencia relativa al parlamento. Eusko Legebiltzarra, Vitoria/Gasteiz, pp 93–154
Gascón M (2006) Calidad de las normas y técnica normativa. Revista Española de la Función Consultiva 6:41–95
Gilbert MD (2006) Single subject rules and the legislative process. Univ Pittsburgh Law Rev 67:803–870
Giménez IM (2008) Leyes de acompañamiento y el problema de las “leyes ómnibus”. Teoría y realidad constitucional 22:525–565
Huijbers L (2019) Process-based fundamental rights review: practice, concept, and theory. Intersentia, Cambridge
Luce R (1922) Legislative procedure. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston/New York
Martínez Lago MA (2015) Los presupuestos para 2016 aprobados en el tiempo de descuento de la X legislatura: ¿un fraude a la constitución? Revista Española de Derecho Financiero 168:15–51
Martínez Lago MA (2016) Los límites de la justicia constitucional: la interpretación constitucional y la técnica jurídica en las “leyes de contenido heterogéneo”. Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional 106:17–71
Massicotte L (2013) Omnibus bills in theory and practice. Can Parliam Rev 36(1):13–17
Massicotte L (2021) Canada: if controversial, omnibus legislation is here to stay. In: Bar-Siman-Tov I (ed) Comparative multidisciplinary perspectives on omnibus legislation. Springer, Cham (in this volume)
Méndez JM, García Andrés G (2002) La ley financiera: un nuevo hito en la reforma del sistema financiero español. Sistema financiero: novedades y tendencias 801:13–24
Mercader J (2007) Técnica legislativa y legislación transversal. In: Mercader J (ed) Comentarios laborales de la ley de igualdad entre mujeres y hombres. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, pp 15–50
Mercader J (2014) Transformaciones y deformaciones de la función legislativa en materia laboral. Información laboral 2:1–30
Meßerschmidt K (2019) Special interest legislation and legislative capture. In: Oliver-Lalana AD (ed) Conceptions and misconceptions of legislation. Springer, Cham, pp 243–272
Ministerio de la Presidencia (2011) Directrices de técnica normativa. Catálogo de las publicaciones de la Administración General del Estado, Madrid (Resolución de 28 de julio de 2005, de la Subsecretaría, por la que se da publicidad al Acuerdo del Consejo de Ministros, de 22 de julio de 2005, por el que se aprueban las Directrices de técnica normativa)
Moreno S (2004) Constitución y leyes de acompañamiento presupuestario. Thomson-Aranzadi, Cizur Menor
Moreno S (2005) De nuevo sobre el contenido constitucionalmente admisible de la Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado. Revista de Información Fiscal 6:11–52
Moreno Fernández JI (2016) De la garantía de la ley al abandono del principio democrático como legitimación del ejercicio del poder. Diálogos jurídicos 1:77–100
Moreu E (2020) Nuestro lenguaje: el giro lingüístico del derecho. Revista de Derecho Público 1:313–362
Nogueira A (2018) Galicia: las leyes “ómnibus” se ponen de moda. In: López Ramón F (ed) Observatorio de políticas ambientales. CIEMAT, Madrid, pp 1087–1101
Oliver-Lalana AD (2011) Legitimidad a través de la comunicación. Comares, Granada
Oliver-Lalana AD (2019) Legislative deliberation and judicial review: between respect and disrespect for elected lawmakers. In: Oliver-Lalana AD (ed) Conceptions and misconceptions of legislation. Springer, Cham, pp 207–241
Pérez (2003) Las medidas de reforma de la ley financiera. Anuario de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares 2003:141–211
Portocarrero J (ed) (2016) Ponderación y discrecionalidad. Un debate en torno al concepto y sentido de los principios formales en la interpretación constitucional. Universidad Externado, Bogotá
Ramallo J (2003) El bloque presupuestario en España. Revista Jurídica de les Illes Balears 1:11–40
Rubio Llorente F (2006) El papel del Consejo de Estado en el control de la calidad técnica de las normas. Revista española de la función consultiva 6:27–40
Sánchez JA (2019) La producción normativa en materia tributaria y la seguridad jurídica. In: Martín J, Pérez B (eds) Seguridad jurídica y derecho tributario. Thomson-Aranzadi, Cizur Menor, pp 387–410
Sanguinetti A (2017) Le rogationes per saturam prima della lex Caecilia Didia. Ius Online (Rivista di scienze giuridiche) 3:10–49
Santaolalla F (2011) ¿Es la homogeneidad material condición indispensable de las iniciativas legislativas? Revista de las Cortes Generales 83:135–176
Xanthaki H (2019) Misconceptions in legislative quality. In: Oliver-Lalana AD (ed) Conceptions and misconceptions of legislation. Springer, Cham, pp 23–50
Zarraluqui L (2012) El bosque legislativo. Available at www.zarraluqui.net/articulos
Acknowledgements
I very much thank Suzie Navot for her insightful comments on a preliminary version of this essay, as well as the rest of participants in the International Conference on Omnibus Legislation (Bar-Ilan University, January 2019) for constructive discussions about this and other topics—a special mention goes for Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov and his excellent team. The preparation of this chapter was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science Project RTI2018-095843-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), the Ramón y Cajal Research Fund, and the University of Zaragoza’s Legal Sociology Lab (Research Group Strategy of the Government of Aragon, 2017/2019).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Oliver-Lalana, A.D. (2021). Omnibus Legislation in Spain: Between Political Expediency, Doctrinal Condemnation, and Judicial Indulgence. In: Bar-Siman-Tov, I. (eds) Comparative Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Omnibus Legislation. Legisprudence Library, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72748-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72748-2_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-72747-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-72748-2
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)