Regional Defiance and Enforcement of Federal Law in Spain

This chapter analyses three cases of challenges to the federal law in Spain. These episodes can offer an ideal opportunity to consider the resources available to the Spanish constitutional system in order to impose compliance with federal law. The first issue under discussion is the so-called ‘Ibarretxe plan’, which initially consisted of the proposal for a ‘New Political Statute’ for the Basque Country, which was rejected by the Lower House of the Spanish Parliament. The second great political challenge concerns the Catalan Parliament’s claim to the ‘right to decide’: a demand for a referendum in which Catalan citizens could decide their political future. The third episode is the ‘Atutxa case’, involving the former President of the Basque Parliament, which showcases the characteristics of criminal coercion in the event of non-compliance with Court decisions as a form of refusal to comply with federal law.

Catalan · Coercion (linguistics) · Humanities · Law enforcement · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Statute · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · European Criminal Justice and Data Protection · Human Rights and Immigration · Law · Compliance · Diplomatic relations · European Union · foreign relations