The process of reform of the Spanish Constitution and parliamentary minorities

Abstract

This paper analyses three aspects of the constitutional reform procedures provided for in Arts. 167 and 168 Spanish Constitution: ownership and exercise of the parliamentary initiative, single reading and urgent procedures and qualified majorities at the decision stage. If those want to be truly democratic, they should integrate the minorities in all their phases although not always with the same degree of intensity. Verified some deficiencies, this paper offers some proposals for change: conferring the initiative of reform to the same number of members of parliament that hold the legislative initiative, eliminating the special and summary procedures in this field and linking the qualified majorities to those reforms which affect the essential elements of the democratic principle. This being so, the way in which the constitutional reform is carried out will keep up with the importance of what is being reformed.