Una aproximación a los instrumentos de control parlamentario en la Constitución española de 1978

Abstract

In the doctrine, the Spanish Charter of 1978 is deemed as the most successful one ever considered in Spain's constitutionalism. Unlike its predecessors, and mainly inspired in the Italian 1947 Constitution, the Bonn Fundamental Law of 1949, the French Constitution of 1958, and the 1976 Constitution of Portugal, it contains a minimum agreement on the essential, which is a milestone in the history of its legal texts. In this sense, since the Spanish Constitution is an instrument for verifying whether parliamentary supervising methods are typical of certain political- particularly Latín American - regimes or more cornmon to contemporaneous constitutionalism, these control means are analyzed in this article as well as the problems for their application in a plural-party democracy.

The Spanish Government configuration responds to a strongIy rationalized parliamentarianism, the features of which are evidenced not only in the Constitution texts but also in the legislative houses' regulations. We consider that the parliamentary control instruments, and questions, interrogationl and investigation commissions, are badly regulated because they are limitiB rather than encouraging the Parliament's activity, by this meaning that the are within the reach of the minorities but of its majorities thus bein incoherent within a parliamentarianism scheme, considering that th governments come from the legislative. The constituents of 1978 blessed th Head of Government with political stability by means of mechanisms fo correcting his Form oJ Government; but, moreover, we consider that th presence of lasting parliamentary majorities has been a key element i government stability. However, not any kind of majority can promote tha stability. We have noticed that Spanish Parliamentarianism works much betle by means of alliances: that is, when no specific party holds an absolut majority - hence being forced to make pacts as to agree upon investing a ne\ government. Otherwise, when the opposite occurs, the exercise of powe tends from time to time to edge towards almost totalitarian stances, in thi: way ignoring dialogue and tolerance with respect to minorities in all its actions.

Finally, this approach to the Spanish Parliamentary Control shows that thl problems put forth by Constitutional Law are similar in all forms o governments, even in those countries having opted for mixed models sud as the Peruvian Political Regime. In this sense, since party-based democrac) is very strong and hard to be challenged in the medium term, we considel that a regular renewal of the parliamentary mandate is necessary to prevell 1a government - with a parliamentarian majority - from daringIy exercises power with no fear of the opposition's political control.