Spanish Local Government
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1959.tb01531.x |
| Date | 01 June 1959 |
| Published date | 01 June 1959 |
Spanish Local Government
By PROFESSOR
L.
L~PEZ
RODO
Professor Laureano Ldpez Rod6 is Head of the General Technical Secre-
tariat, Prime Minister’s Department
;
Professor of Public Administration
Higher Studies
in
the
University of Madrid and
a
member
of
the
Spanish
“
Cortes.”
HERE is a long tradition of local government in Spain.
-
Municipal
T
liberties have deep roots and have flourished, not only because of the
struggle between the King and the nobles in the Middle Ages, but also due
to the Reconquest-the long war
of
eight centuries against the
Moors.
The
King needed the assistance of the cities and towns in the carrying out of his
great enterprise. He was thus obliged to grant them fueros and cartas pueblos,
namely Bills of Rights and Royal Charters. These recognized a vast number
of privileges, and were in effect the counter-entry in the profits and loss account
of
the royal enterprise. They also provided the special rules governing each
local community, which thus became a kind of collective domain. Thus we
fmd the strong Municipality, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,
taking an active part in political life. This was especially
so
in the case of
the ciudades de
voto
en Cortes-that is to say, cities represented in Parliament.
We have many cases of the Deputies of these cities voting against royal
petitions to Parliament. Once the power of the nobles had been overcome,
the King had therefore to turn against the Municipalities,
so
as
to
bring about
the centralization of power. Hostility at the outset was underground, but
eventually developed into
an
open struggle, The issue was settled at the
battle of Villalar, when the commoners from the Municipalities were defeated
by Charles
V,
and the absolutist and centralized rkgime became a fact.
General laws took precedence over local privileges, the latter becoming of a
purely financial nature.
The advent of absolutism entailed the decline of Parliament, and the
consequent disappearance of the Deputies of the cities, which, from then on,
are no longer represented in the State. On the other hand, the State is no
longer nurtured with the sap
of
local life. The presence of the State is,
however, felt
in
local government,
in
the person
of
the Corregidor (the King’s
representative). Local Authorities are eclipsed by the delegate
of
the
central power.
The change-over from absolutism to the parliamentary system did not
bring about a notable change in this state
of
affairs.
It
has rightly been said
that the Executive is the heir of the absolute monarch. The central power in
the nineteenth century followed the same line with the Municipalities as it
had done under the old system. The Municipality was rather regarded as
the last cog in the machinery of the State.
It
was therefore shaped and
regulated with a single centralizing criterion. The Cortes of Cadiz, which
founded Spanish constitutionalism, are a good example of this overlogical
approach. Another instance is the division
of
the country into forty-nine
provinces in
1833
a division which ignored the fact
of
history, but was
in
accordance with the lines laid down by the Constitution
of
1812. According
to this the then division of the country into fourteen kingdoms,
two
153
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