The limits of parliamentary autonomy today. The catalonian conflict and the oversight of acts of Parliament without legal force by the Constitutional Court

Abstract

Within the Catalonian sovereigntist project, the Parliament of Catalonia has played a very prominent role through the approval of laws and numerous declarations and motions that sought to implement the pro-independence roadmap, and which have been systematically appealed before the Constitutional Court. In this paper, we will analyse the Constitutional Court’s rulings on the Catalan Parliament’s activity without legal force to determine whether they deviate from constitutional case-law on the position and functions of the Parliament and its members. In this way, we will try to determine whether and to what extent this case-law has modified the degree of parliamentary autonomy that the Constitutional Court has recognised for decades.