The impact of covid-19 on the Spanish constitutional order

Abstract

The strong shock suffered in the constitutional regimes of our environment by the coronavirus pandemic has been reflected, mainly, in the generation of states of emergency or exception (formal or de facto), the attenuation of parliamentary controls over the measures adopted by governments (which have meant the deprivation or limitation of fundamental rights and public liberties) and, even, the revision of some of the ideological assumptions of constitutionalism (for example, the way of conceiving the intervention of the State on society or the checks and balances between powers). As far as Spain is concerned, the most relevant and controversial problems that, from the perspective of Constitutional Law, the coronavirus pandemic has brought with it have been the preterition of Parliament, of which the suspension of its activity at the beginning of the crisis and the excessive and arbitrary use of decree-laws are the most significant examples, and that relating to the conformity with the Constitution of the measures restricting rights adopted to deal with the public health emergency caused by covid-19, which has not only been questioned by different judicial decisions and part of the academy, but by the Constitutional Court itself, which has gone so far as to overrule the most significant decisions of the holders of the power of exception, also by the Constitutional Court itself, which has gone so far as to disavow the most significant decisions of the holders of the power of exception.