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1 wrz 2024 · Cortes Generales is the official name of the Spanish Parliament, comprising two Houses (Congress of Deputies and the Senate). This is the traditional name in Spain: the mediaeval assemblies of various peninsular kingdoms were called Cortes.
The King left Spain, and a Republic was declared on 14 April 1931. The Second Spanish Republic was established as a presidential republic, with a unicameral Parliament and a President of the Republic as the Head of State.
This chapter explains the functions and working of Spain’s parliament, las Cortes Generales. More specifically, it first analyses parliament’s place within the constitutional system, and representation related to political parties, women and other minority groups, and citizen trust.
Spanish politics throughout the first several centuries of the country’s his-tory, but the restoration of a reactionary king (Fernando VII) following the War of Independence (1808–14) against the Napoleonic occupation (during which the liberal 1812 constitution was written) triggered see-saw struggles
In 1812 the Spanish Cortes met at Cádiz and adopted the first liberal constitution. Although it was overthrown in 1814, the Cortes was restored in 1820 and was adopted by Portugal in the same year. In both countries the word was henceforth applied to the national parliament.
The constitution declared Spain a constitutional parliamentary monarchy with H.M. King Juan Carlos I as Head of State. Spain's transformation from an authoritarian regime to a successful modern democracy was a remarkable achievement, even creating a model emulated by other countries undergoing similar transitions. [43]
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 ...
