Fundamental Rights in the Spanish Constitution: Interpretation and Legal Rationality
Fundamental Rights in the Spanish Constitution of 1978
Objective and Subjective Status of Fundamental Rights
The objective status of the statute states that rights are legal standards, working as legal duties or obligations. Since the rights were transferred to be positivism as standards, the nature of legal rules is their objective status. This means that generally, there are no more rights for citizens than those enshrined in constitutions.
Moreover, regarding subjective status, one could say that since this statute if the rights become standards (fundamental) of the legal system, it is pertinent to question whether the individual plays a role in implementing such standards. That is, the subjective status is related to the individual being granted the ability to operate a dispute through legal procedures. This guarantee has to do with performance assessment for public authorities to make rules containing rights.
Subgroups of Rights Under the Spanish Constitution
- Subgroup 1 – These rights have only an objective status. Their role is to guide legislation, judicial practice, and actions of public authorities. They are content in the hands of public authorities, as they are only alleged, thus having the subjective status of legal rights but not the subjective status of constitutional rights.
- Subgroup 2 – These rights are binding on the government and are said to have substance that must respect its legal regulation. They present a more objective protected status than the first subgroup. They also have the subjective status of legal right, reinforced by the allusion to the relationship and respect for their essential content.
- Subgroup 3 – Besides their objective status as an objective legal subsystem, these rights have a very marked subjective status. They are guaranteed expedited alternative to ordinary common procedures for all warranty rights and have the subjective amparo to the Constitutional Court after the period of prior litigation.
Interpretation and Application of the Law
Criteria for Interpreting the Facts
The structure of any sentence is comprised of a heading, factual background, legal arguments, and a decision. The core of the interpretation lies not only in the legal grounds but also in the factual background, i.e., in interpretations of the facts. In judicial activities concerning the events, there are three different times:
- The time of acquisition of evidence: This refers to the way evidence is introduced at trial. This phase is regulated in some detail in the laws of the trial.
- The time of the decision on the main event: This determines the connection that the judge makes as to the facts (minor premise) in the appropriate standard (major premise).
- The time of the assessment of evidence: Between the two previous times, there is a space that is central to the court experience, that of evaluating the evidence. This results in the determination of the facts, where the yield from each source is considered. This operation is not legally regulated; in this matter, the principle of self-belief governs. As indicated, the formation of such conviction represents the moment when the judge is most autonomous and could be most arbitrary.
Rationalities of the Theory of Legislation
- Linguistic Rationality: The legal system consists of a set of statements organized in a language and through channels that ensure the transmission of messages. The law is the message, the message editor (edictor) is the editor of the law, and the recipient of this may be one who has to comply or not comply but can decipher its linguistic content. If language is addressed to all people, it uses natural language, and if it is addressed to specialists, it uses technical language.
- Formal Legal Rationality: The edictor must be determined by law and in accordance with the procedure laid out within it. At this level, we can say that a law is irrational if and to the extent that it contributes to the erosion of the legal structure.
- Pragmatic Rationality: The effectiveness of law is a value of any rule of law. The edictor behaves as a sovereign because the effectiveness of laws depends on their capacity as state power to ensure that laws are obeyed. A law is irrational if and to the extent that it fails as a directive for behavior, i.e., when it fails in its aim of influencing the conduct of the addressees of the law.
- Teleological Rationality: The edictors are the bearers of particular and general social interests, who manage these interests so that they are translated and protected by law. The law aims to achieve or promote particular social goals or objectives. A law is irrational if and to the extent that it has no effect or produces unforeseen effects that cannot be regarded as undesirable.
- Ethical Rationality: The edictors are those entitled to make laws. Parliament is seen as the body to produce laws as a representative of popular sovereignty in an ethical sense. A law is irrational if it is not ethically justified. Ethical values are freedom, equality, and justice, and these values must be present in the content of laws.
Features of the Legal System as a System of Rules
Unity, Coherence, and Completeness
The characteristics of the legal system (unity, coherence, and completeness) are not predicable of any rules in particular. Even the Constitution, as the “standard unit” for the rest of the standards, meets the two requirements immediately: consistency and completeness. In Spain, there is only one Constitution.
The idea of “unity” can only be fully achieved when the unit is preached to the attributes of consistency and completeness. A “unit” that is incoherent and not full may be able to remain a “unity” but goes far beyond the realm of what is legally acceptable.
Any rule, including the Constitution, requires the work of interpretation in order to argue that a rule is “consistent” with the legal system (fullness) in which it is integrated. Thus we conclude:
- The property of unity, in modern constitutional legal systems, cannot be reduced to a “given” to the data of the verification of the existence of a single constitution.
- The property of consistency is predicated on isolated standards, and through the early resolution of conflict between the rules (lex posterior derogat priori, lex superior derogat inferiori, lex specialis derogat generali), it provides a coherent meaning to be given to the meaning of any rule.
- The property of completeness (rational closure of the system) is characteristic of the idea of law because fullness is not predicable, either of the standard system drive (Constitution) or any other lower standard. Therefore, the idea of completeness is contained in the very meaning of law. As a legal system can have unity and coherence, but not be considered rational.