“The Spanish Constitution is even more of a guarantee than a problem”

It was within the framework of the first conference on constitutional consensus and democratic memory, organized by the Spanish Institute of Historical and legal sciences with the collaboration of the City Hall of Córdoba, the University and the Government of Andalusia.

Miquel Roca (Bordeaux, 1940) was mainly aimed at university students of law and business administration and management, who listened to him in the Orive Room. “I am, like everything here, an archaeological vestige,” he began with humor, before telling them that they could build a better future if those who experienced the transition, in circumstances more difficult, they succeeded.

His words were above all a defense of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, whose so-called fathers were only “simple writers “They wrote what people wanted.” He recounted the anecdote of a stranger who asked him in the street at that time: “Roca, this time, it has to go well.” Until then, the history of Spain was full of “intransigence”.

“Win it freedom It’s not easy, but the hardest part is learning to live there. Respecting your neighbor is complicated, but it must be done. Not only respect it, but give yourself the opportunity to express it,” he summarized, as a warning.

His words were intended to praise not only the spirit that made the Constitution possible, but also the validity it continues to have: “Read it a little, even if it’s just a skim. The Constitution is even more a guarantee than a problem, and there all our problems can find an answer, and those who do not find it are because they arise against it.

To read it is to cultivate “the constructive memory», unlike the one who speaks of past tragedies, and by insisting on freedom, he reminded them that they will have to learn to get along, because its maintenance depends precisely on the agreements.

He distinguished between a young democracy and a mature democracy, like Spanish democracy. “The young person gives a more compact response, while the more mature person leaves himself more open to the presentation of more minority projects, and that is what is in question in the political pluralism“, he stressed.

The solution then is “to agree and to agree, because consensus is the result of necessity and arises when there are ambitious objectives”. “Can we make reforms based on very strict, circumstantial and contradictory majorities? The answer is no, and the answer is consensus, which makes us adults and makes us characters who manage the future in a reasonable way,” he summarized.

In the transition, consensus has become possible to lay the foundations of a democracy and it must be explained well, as he said. He recalled, for example, the pacts of La Moncloa and how Marcelino Camacho, who had to give up much of what he stood for, felt it was a good deal. “I agreed to give up coherence, but the country needed this effort,” he recalled.

He did not hesitate to remind them that they can now take a stand against the current political system, but not against those who lived under Franco and could not express themselves. His last word for the young people was to defend what was done in those years and its comparison with what is happening today: “You are going to live a difficult time, but I envy it so much.” difficulty“.

He also spoke Manuel Aragon (Benamejí, 1944), a prestigious jurist, professor of constitutional law and magistrate at the Constitutional Court, who wanted to compare democracy with grass. “The sap is received from the bottom up, that is to say from the city, from the earth, but the maintenance is done from the top down,” he explained.

This must be done by the institutions that are in charge, and if it remains for a long time, “it does not germinate, it has to be replanted and that can take years.” “Democracy dries up if it is not watered continuously, and sometimes it is not achieved, because it takes many years and there can be difficulties,” he said.

He spoke about concordconsensus and exemplarity as bases of the system born with the transition that followed the death of Franco and warned of a strong institutional deterioration, “perhaps since 2005, but which reached its peak in the last six years”.

He listed the problems: “The General courts “They are deteriorated, the Government does not respond to parliamentary questions, the decree law is the ordinary way of legislating, there are laws which are very poorly constructed technically and ‘omnibus’ decree laws are published, with amendments intrusive.”

The consequence of these problems, and of a presidentialism that has become more evident, is “a institutional deterioration serious, with an unarmed state. He warned of the risk that “all this polarization will end up taking hold if it is not stopped in time.”

Because for Manuel Aragón, the refusal of the transversal pact between the different parties, as is currently the case, “can lead to political discord which turns into social discordand that he falls into hatred, which is what was banished in the transition.

Consuelo Madrigal (Segovia, 1956) was the first female Attorney General of Spain, between 2015 and 2016, and later participated in the trial for the independence process of Catalonia. “Democracy cannot defend itself except through the consensus which gives birth to the law, which defends the order of democracy and freedom,” he summarized.

He praised the memory of the transition, which managed to overcome with reason what happened during the civil war, “because if we only talk about blame and violence, then the terror has no end. He remembered the initial cruelty of the dictatorship and looked for the goal that had been achieved at the time of the arrival of democracy: “Between the 60s and 80s, the memory of the horrors and the suffering of the civil war was so great that the vast majority of Spaniards did not want to forget it, but rather did not want it to happen again.

It was the spirit that had already shown Azana in 1938, with its “peace, mercy, forgiveness”, and that the search for harmony was the key to the success of the transition to democracy” as a means of overcoming the tragedy that began in 1936.

This does not mean that there are no more dangers: “The majority plus one does not allow break the lawdoes not allow us to escape the control of the judiciary, as is often said or desired. He also criticized the government which speaks of “excesses of the judiciary”.

“THE achievements In the area of ​​freedom, they are always provisional and we must not be afraid to raise our voices in defense of democracy and freedom itself. Being a participatory citizen leads to courageous effort and resistance, which manifests itself through criticism and re-examination of ideas,” he said.

The speaking round was closed by the journalist Juan Fernández-Miranda, who began with information: twenty million Spaniards were born after June 15, 1977, one of the first elections free after Franco’s death.

They represent 40 percent of those living in Spain, and the fact that so many people were born free is “an exception and a gift that they must appreciate and know, but also a responsibility.” Fernández-Mirada has just published “Objective: democracy. Chronicle of the political process that transformed Spain”, awarded the Espasa Prize.

In a year it will be half a century since Franco’s death, it will be time to write and remember a lot about that, and he defended the “virtuous triangle” that the king represented. Juan Carlos I; the president of the Cortes, Torcuato Fernández-Mirandaand the president of the government Adolfo Suarez. In 19 months, they were able to call an election.

“The world admired Spain,” he said, for the way it was achieved: “The king established the destiny, Torcuato designed the tracks and the locomotive and Suárez was in charge.” He invited them to meet him, because democracy faced four problems, of which “at least three” had been resolved.

Thus, there was the social, with many attenuated inequalities, but also the military, in a country which has experienced dozens of coups d’état or attempts since the 19th century. They were given an answer, just like the religious problem, and this could also have happened with the territorial“but the disloyalty of certain communities forces us to review it.”

His bet is “the demystificationbecause you have to know the process to improve it; take the baton from those who did it in the 70s and said it in the 90s and those who leave the legacy of being critical citizens who can disagree on the basis of harmony. The journalist ended with a sentence from Felipe González: “I prefer to be a son of the transition rather than a grandson of the civil war.”