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The paper addresses the issue, largely unexplored in comparative law, of the enforcement of constitutional court decisions. Through the study of four constitutional justice systems (Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy), the paper attempts to answer numerous questions that arise when dealing with such an unusual topic in the study of constitutional justice: is there a general demand for the enforcement of the decisions of constitutional courts? If there are rules on the matter, how do they differ? What are the reasons for the differences in the regulations? Does the enforcement in constitutional proceedings differ from the model established by common procedural law? In an attempt to answer to these questions, the article analyzes the bodies involved in constitutional enforcement, the different ways in which enforcement is regulated and, finally, by systematizing the analysis carried out for each legal system, it identifies models of enforcement in the European constitutional procedural law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Should provisional prisoners be allowed to stand for election? In the wake of recent experiences in the Spanish political scene, this paper attempts to answer this question. The answer is organized in three parts: firstly, an approach is made to the conceptual distinction between ownership and exercise of the right to passive suffrage; secondly, an analysis is made of how the restriction of the status libertatis affects political rights; and, thirdly, the paper descends to the casuistry to observe the behavior of the institutions in the face of requests from provisional prisoners to participate in electoral acts as members of an electoral candidacy. The paper concludes by proposing the regulation of a new cause of ineligibility for provisional prisoners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last ten years, the activity of the Constitutional Court in the field of parliamentary amparos has grown exceptionally. New and highly relevant cases have been addressed, with characteristics that differ from the previous stage. The Constitutional Court has produced a wealth of very interesting jurisprudence in several areas and has adopted highly controversial rulings. This paper aims to offer a hurried chronicle of what this decade of parliamentary jurisprudence has meant, from 2014 to 2023, by reviewing all the judgments that have been handed down in parliamentary amparos. The overview is followed by some reflections on the most relevant aspects. All of this with the conviction that this prodigious decade has meant the passage to maturity of this typically Spanish mechanism of constitutional justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to offer a global overview of the path taken by the Constitutional Court during these more than forty years of appeal for amparo. It also reveals the importance of this resource in the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. Its trajectory is analyzed over decades, emphasizing what has been proven to be most significant and defining in each of them, including the one we are still immersed in: judgements, milestones, challenges, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Constitutional Court's Order 177/2022, of December 19, which constitutes an unprecedented resolution by suspending the processing of two legislative amendments and preventing the Senate from fully exercising its legislative power in a legislative reform on the appointment of constitutional judges. The Constitutional Court allowed two judges to intervene in the deliberation and ruling on their own recusal, jeopardizing the right to an impartial court. In admitting the amparo appeal, the Constitutional Court issued a decision on the merits by paralyzing the legislative procedure with a lack of prudence and respect for parliamentary autonomy despite compliance with the Senate's Rules of Procedure and the guarantees of the rights of senators in the legislative procedure. The Constitutional Court has created a new way of prior review of constitutionality not contemplated in either the Constitution or the Constitutional Court Organic Law, authorizing each deputy or senator individually to request the Constitutional Court to suspend a bill parliamentary processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identity, referred to in Article 4(2) TEU, has been interpreted in different ways by the Court of Justice of the European Union and by different constitutional jurisdictions in some member States. This paper examines the evolution of the regulation of constitutional identity in the Union's treaties and in the case law of the Court of Luxembourg and certain constitutional courts, and proposes, in the light of the analysis carried out, some hypotheses as to which bodies should be responsible for invoking national identity, in which cases and with what effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some years now, in some European countries the decline in the quality of laws has come to be perceived as a threat to the rule of law. For this reason, some constitutional courts have abandoned their usual self-restraint in the review of defects in legislative technique in order to carry out a more intense control in this regard. Thus, in Germany, France and Italy, on the basis of very general constitutional provisions, the constitutional courts use parameters such as comprehensibility, accessibility and clarity of the laws, and in more recent years declarations of unconstitutionality have become relatively common. This paper focuses on examining the constitutional jurisprudence on the principle of legal certainty explicitly enshrined in the Spanish Constitution, with the main objective of assessing whether our Constitutional Court also joins this tendency to control the lack of quality of laws more strictly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights how the pandemic caused by COVID-19 constitutes one of the many global risks faced by our societies, one of those risks that have arrived to stay. That, therefore, demands a response out of a state of exceptionality. The paper also warns of the risks and insecurity for fundamental rights posed by the delay in the time of exceptional measures, and advocates regulation by organic law of health emergency situations --the current one or those that we may experience in the future--. The question of how we assess the risks and what responses we regulate in advance to face them constitutes today an imperative for the defense of fundamental rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last pronouncements of the Tribunal Constitucional related to the institution of the consultative referendum in Article 92 of the constitutional text and its hypothetical transfer to the sphere of the comunidades autónomas, dictated essentially in the context of the Catalan independence conflict, make it necessary to compile and update the doctrine established by the highest interpreter of the Constitution in this matter. For this reason, after a brief introduction to the Spanish democratic model and the proposal of a possible alternative interpretation of Article 92 of the Constitution, different to that established by Tribunal Constitucional, this article reviews its main rulings which have defined the terms “referendum” and “popular consultation” in the sphere of competence of the Estado autonómico. On the other hand, after noting that, in general, constitutional jurisprudence has notably restricted the possibility of a referendum of comunidades autónomas, the paper also proposes different solutions for studying the viability of a consultative referendum in this sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a conceptual approach to the phenomenon of post-truth and its effects on democracy and human rights. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, we first attempt to construct a concept of post-truth and identify some of the causes that explain it. Subsequently, we analyze the effects of post-truth on democracy and the role played by fake news in this scenario. Finally, we reflect on the impact on human rights that may be produced in the context of post-truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis defended in this paper is that the erosion that the parliamentary institution has been suffering has been increased in recent times by a series of additional elements or circumstances, which has affected its legal-constitutional position and its very nature. Thus, it is intended to conveniently identify these threats to parliamentarism, measure to what extent they have even penetrated the legal system, highlight which of these measures are contrary to the Constitution and the essence of the representative democracy and highlight the need to operate the necessary reforms so that the parliament recovers the central role that it should never have lost. Finally, and given the limitations and length of a work of these characteristics, the analysis and conclusions of this study are especially focused on the so-called consensual models that include parliamentary democracy, a multi-party political system and a proportional electoral one, among other fundamental elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the evolution and wear and tear of the General Council of the Judiciary of the Spanish State, especially as a result of the deadlock in its renewal for more than three years. To do so, it is based on the theory of the constitutional body and claims it as an unquestionable standard for the study of our model. It presents the richness and complexity of the «state of the art» of our CGPJ and its many models that have emerged in a hyper-reformist panorama. And from here, especially under the latest reform of 2021 that regulates the «acting council», the work focuses on three of the various problems that the council has been suffering, namely: the development of its competence in discretionary appointments, the misunderstanding of its nature as an accountable body (hence the poverty of such tools designed for accountability) and, finally, it reflects on the blockage of renewal and its «fraudulent» regulation. The paper concludes with a look at Europe and the soft law documents on judicial councils in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the accommodation of religion --governmental policies with a long-standing practice in United States constitutional law--, as well as the debates generated about the conformity of accommodation of religion with the two clauses on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Establishmente Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The paper analyzes also the main jurisprudence on accommodation of religion and the tests that have been constructed to judge this kind of policies, as the test Lemon and test Cutter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exposes the framework of international law and comparative law around the recognition of self-determination, with special attention to the criteria established by the jurisprudence of the ECHR, and a critical analysis of the Spanish legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council for the Judiciary in Spain is currently in a truly complicated situation. Since December 3, 2018, the CGPJ has not been renewed and remains in office, which is deteriorating the institutional functioning of our democratic system and consequently leading to its delegitimization. The situation has come to such an extent that the President of the governing body, made up of judges, has been forced to resign, thereby producing an unprecedented institutional crisis. This paper offers a proposal for the election of the members of the Council that allows reconciling the European demands and those of the main opposition party, PP, in relation to this issue and the position taken by the government party, PSOE. Proposal that tries to combat the interest of political parties to control the Council and, consequently, avoid blocking situations in its renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a global and critical study of the legal regime of the right to vote of foreigners in Spain. This regime addresses in all its extension and through its different pieces --Constitution, European regulations, legislation, international treaties, regulatory provisions and doctrine of the Central Electoral Board--, in order to know its status, coherence and possibilities of interpretation and even needs for reform. And it is done both taking into account its effects on the legal-political system, and following the usual criteria of constitutional interpretation and fundamental rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes several questions from a legal, political and constitutional perspective produced by Spanish Democratic Memory Law adopted in 2022: 1977 amnesty law; Constitution relevance in face of democratic memory policies; current importance of political transition values; extension of investigations against human rights violation after entering into force the Constitution in 1978; declaration of illegality, illegitimacy and overruling of sanctions and convictions of Francoist military courts; restrictions on the exercise of constitutional rights and freedoms to avoid Francoism apology and its victims dignity humiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper has been to analyze the parliamentary oversight in the Spanish emergency law. The first task has been to define the parliamentary oversight. Section I has dealt with it. The second task has been to delimit from a theoretical perspective the extraordinary parliamentary oversight (by and in) exercised by Congress in the Spanish Emergency Law. Section II has dealt with this. The third task has been to evaluate the extraordinary oversight exercised in practice by Congress in the two states of alarm decreed throughout the entire spanish territory to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Section III has dealt with this. The paper ends with some brief final notes (Section IV). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the theories of the state and the law of exception that have tried to explain when and how the state can react to situations that endanger its own existence. The classical theories of the state of exception are unable to accommodate the exception in constitutional law because they are unable to distinguish exceptionality and normality. The theories on the law of exception, although they do allow distinguishing exceptionality and normality, reach the paradox of introducing the rule and the exception in the same constitutional text. The aim of this paper is to analyze how a constitutionally adequate construction of the exception in constitutional law can be carried out. Based on the Spanish Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present repertory gathers a selection of various doctrinal contributions (books, chapters and papers) on the Judiciary of Spain published in the last two decades. They are a reflection of some of the challenges that the Judiciary has lately faced, and they tackle issues as the Judiciary and the decentralised territorial model, the independence of the Judiciary as one of the three branches of any State based on the principle of rule of law, the constitutional status of the judges who make up the Judiciary, the General Council of the Judiciary, the governing body of the Judiciary, and the Prosecution Ministry, the latter two bodies which, although not part of the Judiciary, are closely related to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the power to make regulations conferred to the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary from the first of its Organic Laws to the present. To do so, we examine the laws that have regulated this issue over the years, since 1980 until the last most important reform, the Organic Law 4/2013, the regulations approved by the General Council of the Judiciary and the judgments handed down by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to identify specific requirements for statement of reasons when ordinary courts receive petitions to review the constitutional or EU Law conformity of legislation. The article first focuses on the fundamental right to obtain a reasoned judicial resolution and how it compels judges to motivate resolutions. Then, the work inquires in the links of such obligation of the judicial power with the Spanish «constitutionality reference», enshrined in article 163 CE, and with the preliminary reference procedure established in article 267 TFEU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish Constitution forbids judges to exercise jurisdictional functions and at the same time holding other public offices. However, the Organic Law of the Judicial Power stipulates that judges can easily return to the judiciary afterwards. This paper reviews pros and cons of that regulation, arguing on the principle of separation of powers, judicial pluralism, and fundamental rights (both of judges and citizens) involved. The conclusion is reached that, in the present context of «politization of Justice», it is advisable to strengthen conditions under which judges could return to be judges after being for some time politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Constitutional Court's manifestations of self-restraint, that is, those areas in which, within the margin granted by the Constitution and the law, the Court has shown deference to the actions of the judicial bodies, seeking to draw the perimeter that is proper to its actions. There are some cases in which, if we speak of self-restraint, it would be in an improper sense because deference to the ordinary jurisdiction is a normative requirement of the Constitutional Court Act (LOTC). In other areas, which we could call self-restraint proper, the self-limitation is expressed in constructions of the Constitutional Court itself, without prejudice to the fact that they are ultimately anchored in the position that the Constitution reserves for the Constitutional Court, the ordinary jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze both the role that the royal prerogative plays in the Spanish democratic system and its particular legal regime. For that purpose, it will be detached from past or historical conceptions which before justified its existence, trying to find its present foundation in the framework of a democratic Constitution, which will determine the function it is called to play in the Spanish legal order. Then, the paper will explore its legal scope, both in substantive and temporal terms, so as to verify whether it is compatible with the function the inviolability holds and, consequently, if we are dealing with a justifiable prerogative or an intolerable privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to note the unsatisfactory functioning of political parties in Spain, their increasingly autocratic and oligarchic nature and their lack of compliance with the constitutional mandate regarding their due internal democracy. In the context of the increasingly frequent primary processes for the election of candidates in Spanish political parties, one of the main obstacles faced by those within the party who dispute the power of the governing structures of political parties is related to the access and management of the register of affiliates. Faced with requests from candidates from outside the organization to have access to this essential information in order to make effective their rights to political participation and internal party democracy, party leaders deny access to the census, invoking compliance with regulations on personal data protection. In this regard, it is analyzed how ordinary courts that have had the opportunity to rule on this type of conflict have favored the application of the protection of personal data based on an interpretation considered exorbitant which, ignoring the context of the problem raised and disregarding an adequate analysis in accordance with the principle of proportionality, represents a clear undermining of the other fundamental rights at stake and the constitutional mandate regarding the internal democracy of the parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic has brought with it innumerable conflicts and debates about fundamental rights and public freedoms and their limitation on the occasion of the protection of public health and the life and integrity of the community, a general interest enshrined in articles 15 and 43 of the Constitution. Among those, compulsory vaccination has been gaining a very relevant interest, especially since the arrival of the first vaccines against Covid-19. This paper addresses the debate on compulsory vaccination from a constitutional perspective, distinguishing between two concepts such as compulsory and forced vaccination. The individual rights involved in one and the other are very different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze whether the fundamental right to the protection of personal data enshrined in article 18.4 of the Spanish Constitution includes the right to access to algorithms used in decision-making. The article focuses mainly on the information obligations that the General Data Protection Regulation imposes on the data controller, which have raised the much-debated question whether it provides data subjects with the right to explanation in case of automated decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus pandemic has tested not only the legal foundations of fundamental rights in Austria, but also the awareness of them. A study by the Sigmund Freud University 2020 states that Austrians' unfamiliarity with their rights is due to their fragmented and stratified constitution and the lack of a catalog of fundamental rights. The dynamic and early work of the Constitutional Court during the Covid-19 crisis has helped to promote the interest of the citizenry, which has been affected in a whole range of freedoms, such as movement and residence, exercising a profession, assembly, the right to private and family life, property, data protection, education and equality. Although for reasons of space it is not appropriate in this paper to address the defense of each right, the reader will get an impression of the challenges, legal and procedural shortcomings of the Austrian legal framework in the face of interim measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 disease. In this context, the versatility and agility with which the centuries-old Constitution and its Constitutional Court have responded in defense of fundamental rights is positively surprising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact tracing apps have thrived during the pandemic crisis. The need has led to unbalanced decisions that should be soon improved. In this paper, we shed light on the pros and cons of these apps, concretely the risks of apps like RadarCovid for data protection and privacy. We suggest lawmakers should settle a governance process of the infrastructure beneath the apps. Even though the medical interface should comply with data protection by design, the private platforms of Exposure Notification of Google and Apple (GAEN) do not provide equivalent safeguards. Moreover, the lack of efficiency of the apps, considering these risks, is relevant for the constitutional proportionality of the measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with the usual legal disputes, dealt with through the standard legal instruments, certain situations sometimes arise which threaten the continuity of the constitutional order and require the application of extraordinary measures. These are scenarios that imply a greater concentration of power but still require respect for certain basic legal premises in order to prevent authoritarian behaviours. Since non-regulated or insufficiently regulated emergencies are the most extreme example of this, in the first part of the paper we will see that, even in these cases of true exception, there are sufficient legal criteria to confront danger with guarantees. We will then look at the way in which Spanish public authorities have applied such parameters with clearly positive outcomes and others that have been rather controversial. Crucial in the latter respect is the recent decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court, which has rightly established the partial unconstitutionality of Royal Decree 463/2020, of 14 March, declaring a state of alarm against COVID-19. Because a fundamental rights suspension cannot be accepted under this figure, a state of emergency should have been activated, as it requires parliamentary permission prior to the adoption of such measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present pandemic has already become a veritable case study to assess the constitutional foundations of states of emergency and their application in practice. As Covid-19 spread to every corner of the planet, countries rushed to adopt harsh containment measures, often within the framework of one of the states of emergency provided for in their constitutional texts. In this context, this paper analyses the use of states of emergency in the Member States of the European Union from March 2020 to June 2021, focusing in particular on the role of national parliaments and domestic courts in preventing possible abuses of power by the executive in the management of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Court of Auditors is an institution which is vital for our Democratic and Social State governed by the rule of Law, a better comprehension of the body from the Constitutional Law perspective is still required. Firstly, this paper analyses the role of the Court of Auditors as a guarantee of the democratic principle. On this issue, it will be advisable to set up a more direct contact with citizens and a more fluid relationship with Parliament. Secondly, this article studies the fundamental activity of the Court of Auditors as a guarantee of the rule of law principle, not only when the institution performs its audit function, but also its judicial function. In spite of the critiques which the last one has received, it is fundamental for completing the cycle of audit. Thirdly, the paper underlines the relevance of the Court of Auditors as a guarantee of the Social Estate, especially when the principle of budgetary balance imposes more efficiency and economy on public spending. Finally, the reforms proposed by the Tribunal de Contas Portuguese and the European Court of Auditors in their peer review of 2015 are analysed. Many of these suggestions can be implemented by changing the Laws which rule on the Spanish Court of Auditors. However, other proposal may make convenient a reform of Art. 136 of our Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to analyse the system of restrictions on the exercise of rights provided by articles 8 to 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thus, the principal aim is reflecting on the impact of these restriction clauses, their case-law development by the European Court of Human Rights and their meaning on the construction of the Council of Europe Human Rights System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the Catalonian sovereigntist project, the Parliament of Catalonia has played a very prominent role through the approval of laws and numerous declarations and motions that sought to implement the pro-independence roadmap, and which have been systematically appealed before the Constitutional Court. In this paper, we will analyse the Constitutional Court's rulings on the Catalan Parliament's activity without legal force to determine whether they deviate from constitutional case-law on the position and functions of the Parliament and its members. In this way, we will try to determine whether and to what extent this case-law has modified the degree of parliamentary autonomy that the Constitutional Court has recognised for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of the health crisis on constitutional law, taking into account the global context and, therefore, the impact that the crisis may have on the constitutional state with the boost that it will give to the great global agents that have caused the great crises of constitutionalism in our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification and consolidation of human rights standards is part of the work of the European Court of Human Rights. However, the applicability of the European Court’s case-law to the construction of common standards in the field of democracy and elections is one of the most difficult areas, as electoral law is generally part of the sovereign choice of the State. The Court has developed a rich case-law on the rights to political participation on the basis of Article 3 to Protocol I. In spite of the particular content of this Article, different of the other rights recognised in the European Convention on Human Rights, there has been a clear evolution towards a protection of both the individual and the dual nature of political rights. This development would have been incomplete without the work and the interactions with the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, which full name is «Commission for Democracy through Law», which largely contributes to the development of standard-setting processes, acting as a catalyser of the States’ will to reach a European consensus. The Venice Commission is an international body that has a diplomatic dimension: it must cooperate with States, and, at the same time, it must issue opinions and recommendations that are not always easy to implement (and not always followed) at the national level. This paper focuses on the complex role played by the European Court of Human Rights and the Venice Commission in successfully setting common European standards and good practices in the field of elections. This article explores first the hard law standards as developed by the European Court of Human Rights in its case-law in the field of elections. It further examines the role of the Venice Commission and its working methods when identifying soft law standards in the electoral field and how, through its interactions with the Court, reinforces these standards and hard law standards to promote an electoral ius commune. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper´s aim is to analyze the recent reform of the process of selection and appointment of judges of the Supreme Court of Canada. After analyzing the constitutional nature of the institution, it covers aspects such as its composition and eligibility, including the role of the federal Parliament. Following this, the system of selection and appointment is studied with a special focus on how it can channel the participation of Quebec, achieving one of the traditional demands of that province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, assisted-suicide is prohibited criminally. Ordinanza n. 207 (2018) and the Sentenza n. 242 (2019) of the Costituzionale Court have, however, come to allow an exception: suicide-assited may be provided to terminally ill patients with serious conditions, if they depend on life-support medical treatment and have the capacity and freedom to decide. This paper concludes that this jurisprudence will be more symbolic than practical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freedom of artistic creation includes the liberty to disseminate artistic works. The protection of the artistic expression is related with the possibility of distinguishing fiction and reality. This paper studies the possibilities and limits of the art as a protected speech in Spain, taking into account the examples of France, Germany and the European Court of Human Rights [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused serious interference in the functioning of parliaments, which led to different solutions in Spanish autonomous parliaments, Congress and Senate. This paper analyzes the decisions adopted by governing bodies to address the situation generated by the health crisis, where the presence of the institution was essential but neither regulatory provisions nor adequate technological tools were available. In opposition to some imaginative solutions, in which principles such as immediacy or attendance to sessions have been challenged, it is argued that the ductility of parliamentary law has limits if we want to stay within the bounds of the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No one can doubt the importance of the doctrine of division of powers, in the formulation made by Montesquieu, for the modern Constitutional State. However, few also will ignore that the virtuallity to explain the power relations in the current States, characterized as «State of Parties» (Triepel) has been questioned, in the context of a broader crisis of representative Democracies. This paper argues that, inasmuch as political parties are indispensable elements of our democratic system, the classic distinction between legislative, executive and judicial power enunciated by the Baron de la Brède must be understood together with the set of checks and balances (vetoes) that it occurs in relations between government and opposition [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the study of the electoral system of the Belgian House of Representatives and its electoral reforms. Belgium was the first European country to adopt an electoral system of proportional representation and, since then, its main elements have exhibited extraordinary stability. However, with the turn of the century, the coalition government headed by the liberal Guy Verhofstadt put the debate on institutional reforms at the center of the political agenda. This led to an electoral reform that involved several novelties: the «provincialization» of the electoral map, the establishment of a 5 percent threshold and the reduction of the list vote weight by half. In 2012, there was the last electoral reform, which consisted of the division of the controversial constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. This last episode shows the complexity of the Belgian federal model, consociational, bipolar and with centrifugal dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the German electoral system, which is characterized by being a reference model in the world, combining elements of both majority and proportional systems and in which the candidates' nomination within political parties is especially relevant. In addition, there is an analysis of the latest legal reforms that affected the seat allocation procedure and the influence of the Federal Constitutional Court in the delimitation of the whole system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with examining the confluence between the statute of autonomy and the electoral system, as maximum exponents of two fundamental sectors of Spanish constitutional law: the autonomous regime and the electoral regime. For this purpose, the content of the statutes on the autonomous electoral system is realized, its importance is calibrated, the contributions made to the electoral law as a whole, especially Spanish, are individualized, and it is concluded, finally, with an assessment of the regulation and a brief reference to the position of the Constitutional Court on the few conflicts raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the electoral systems of Ireland, Switzerland and Portugal. These three countries, like Spain, share the use of low magnitude constituencies within the framework of a proportional electoral system. However, each uses a different ballot structure, a circumstance that helps to understand the relevance of this element in the functioning of electoral systems. The analysis of the legal framework, its evolution and political performance offers us valuable information on different electoral models which can serve as a reference to assess some problematic aspects of the Spanish electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the «electoral barrier» or «exclusion clause» established by law for the elections to the Lower House (three percent of the valid votes cast in the constituency). After studying the real scope and effectiveness of this barrier, as well as the consequences of considering «blank votes» as «valid votes», we wonder about the reasons that justified (during the Political Transition) and (currently) still justify the application of an «almost» inefficient electoral barrier. Finally, we analyze the three reform proposals for this clause (so that it is no longer ornamental and becomes discriminatory): first, to raise the barrier from three to five percent of the valid votes cast in the constituency; second, to maintain the barrier at three percent, but by counting votes cast throughout the State; and third, the combination of the two previous measures, that is, to set the barrier at five percent of the valid votes cast throughout the State (although with specific clauses for political parties that limit their performance to a specific autonomous region). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the German electoral system, its reforms and the doctrine of the German Federal Constitutional Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the politico-constitutional upheavals that took place in Turkey since 15 July 2016. While a state of emergency has been proclaimed to restore the public order disturbed by the attempted military coup, a constitutional modification, addressed to remove the parliamentary system, has been adopted under exceptional circumstances. The first question we considered in this paper is the constitutional practice of the state of emergency proclaimed, both in the perspective of the binding Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. Secondly, we analyzed the constitutional modifications, which appear very radical with respect to the continuity of the constitutional order, with respect to the time dimension of its effects, to the procedure adopted and the requirements of the rule of law. We finally asked ourselves whether such 'new order'! is sustainable in a political organization conceived as a democratic State based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides elements to analyse the peacefully accepted practice of using comparative law by the Spanish Constitutional Court. This paper is focus on the use of foreign precedents. It is a contradictory practice although still not explored by the Spanish legal scholarship. In this sense, this paper contributes with a systematic empirical and theoretical analysis of the Spanish Court's decisions where foreign precedents are referenced at the legal groundings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]