The Permanent Deputation in the light of Four Decades of Parliamentary Life

Abstract

In 1978 the Permanent Deputation (“Diputación Permanente”) reappears in the Spanish constitutional history as a body of guarantee, stability and permanence, when the Houses are not in session, have been dissolved or their terms have expired, and since then has grown through four decades of parliamentarian life defining its contours and filing the gaps that existed in its initial configuration. At the same time the Permanent Deputation has increased its stance and dimension, its size, and the number and length of its meetings, up to the point of becoming an additional factor of what some author has called, in a broader context, the continuity of Parliament as a fundamental, consolidated and expansive constitutional principle. However, and even though in general terms the Permanent Deputation has performed well in both Houses, there are good reasons to think that, taking into account the growth of the body, the predominant restrictive interpretation of the more substantial of its functions, “safeguarding the powers of the Houses”, as well as the practice followed regarding the most exercised of them, “to request extraordinary sessions of the Houses”, that it has produced a kind of debate about the substance of the matter to be discussed in the Plenary session, but without the physical presence of the member of the Government supposed to be controlled, and guided almost exclusively by the political interest of the majority, the Permanent Deputation deserves a full review in the near future.