Sánchez Governs by Decree with Dissolved Congress

Once decrees and a dissolved Congress: who legislates in Spain

Article 1.2 of the Constitution states that national sovereignty resides in the Spanish people, from whom all state powers emanate. Article 66.1 adds that the Cortes Generales represent that people. That is the manual. The problem arises when the Executive accumulates eleven decrees in a single legislature and dozens of initiatives, the Cortes are dissolved, and the Standing Committee of the Congress —with its remaining majority— prepares to approve everything the Government had pending. The question running through the debate is simple: is this legal? Is it fascism, autarky, or mere parliamentary engineering?

What the Standing Committee is and what it can approve

The Standing Committee is the body that replaces the Plenary when the Cortes are dissolved or between session periods. Its constitutional function is to safeguard the powers of the Chamber, not to become a substitute parliament. Here lies the first problem: if the majority integrating it is the same as that of the Plenary, any temptation to legislate through the back door becomes routine.

Some argue that the institutional design permits it and that the abuse is not of the body, but of those who occupy it. Against this weighs a technical argument: the Standing Committee is not designed to approve substantive laws, but to ratify decrees already issued by the Executive. The difference is significant.

The decree and the non-existent urgency

Article 86 of the Constitution authorizes the Government to issue provisional legislative measures “in cases of extraordinary and urgent necessity.” The letter is clear. The practice, less so. A reform of the Urban Leasing Act does not, by any stretch, have that urgent character. And there is a proof that dismantles any alibi: the rule does not even enter into force immediately; it does so on November 15.

If there were real urgency, entry into force would be immediate. It is not. This turns the decree into a shortcut to legislate without passing through ordinary parliamentary debate, with the added advantage that the opposition can only ratify or reject it, not amend it.

Is it fascism, autarky, or something else?

The term fascism is used in the debate with more lightness than precision. Historical fascism implied a single party, the suppression of elections, and the annulment of parliament. None of that exists here: there are elections, there is an opposition, and there is a Constitutional Court that can intervene. Another matter is the Führerprinzip, the principle of authority that concentrates decision-making in a single figure. This parallel is launched in the debate as hyperbole, not as a political category.

It is more accurate to speak of institutional coupism or of abusive use of the rules. The system has not broken: it is being stretched to the limit. And that, in legal terms, is different from a coup d'état.

The outdated Constitution and the underlying problem

Part of the analysis points out that the problem is not Sánchez, but the constitutional text. The 1978 Constitution was designed against the ghosts of the dictatorship, not against an Executive willing to squeeze every loophole of the rules. Controls exist, but they are slow and arrive late.

The result is a system where the Government legislates by decree, Parliament ratifies without margin, and citizens witness one legal reform after another without real debate. The law does not prevent it. That is the loophole.

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The analysis gets stuck exactly here: in whether the problem is the rule or who uses it. The available data point to both being true at once, and neither is solved by a change of Government.