Introduction

From 1939 to 1977, Spain was endowed with a one-chamber legislature known as the Cortes. Franco, profoundly hostile to the legislative systems of liberal democracies, swept away the democratically elected single-chamber Parliament of the Second Republic, and imposed what amounted to a rubber-stamp chamber packed with his own nominees and supporters.

Although a modest attempt was made in the the Organic Law of 1967 to introduce a more democratic element, offering the voter an opportunity to elect 108 socalled ‘family MPs’, the result meant little change to the existing system. On the one hand, these comprised no more than a fifth of the membership of the House and, in any case, candidates were carefully screened by the officials of the regime to ensure that only approved figures were allowed to stand. On the other hand, in terms of its mode of functioning, the Cortes was subjected to constant interference from the executive; debates were rarely held, ministers were not obliged to appear on request before the House, and certain issues such as foreign policy and public order were not deemed to be part of its remit.

The legislature today

The above situation, however, changed dramatically in October 1976 when, in an historic decision, the Franco Cortes signed what amounted to its own death-warrant by approving Adolfo Suárez's Political Reform Law (1.1.4).