Marc Carrillo, a member of the Catalan government's Statutory Rights Council and a Professor of Constitutional Law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, gave the lecture «Constitution and Statute: A Practical Reality», on Wednesday, 9 April 2014, as part of the conference cycle organized by the Faculty of Law.
During his lecture, Carrillo gave an overview of topics such as the birth of the Spanish Constitution and the purpose of the statutes of Spain’s different autonomous communities. He also focused more on theory while mentioning some specific features of legislation. He said, “Laws are the expression of the will of the people and all citizens and public authorities are subject to them. Popular sovereignty is based on this premise. The division of power is a guarantee of rights and freedoms”. He added, “That is how the democratic system was built in Spain”.
Carrillo referred to different moments in history when attempts were made to shape the Spanish state. He said, “Of all of them, the most decisive was the Second Republic, which involved breaking away from the model of an authoritarian state”.
The speaker finished by speaking about the evolution of the autonomous communities. He said, “They have allowed for the construction of a social state and have made services more accessible to citizens”. He added, “Spain’s different national governments have provided different, ambiguous versions of the power of the autonomous communities and have tried to take over that power. The reform of the Statute of Catalonia was proposed to correct this ambiguity, but some of the new articles were declared unconstitutional”.
