The great absent: for a Statute of Political Opposition after 40 years of Constitution

Abstract

Abstract:
Assuming that in a plural and democratic state such as the Spanish one, there cannot be more counterbalance to majority than minority nor it can there be more counterbalance to the opposition than majority. The absence of a constitutional statute for the parliamentary opposition can become a blindness that could aggravates citizen disaffection at a time when the mainstream parties
with a vocation for government in the European Union are «agents with two
principals», that is, agents of two instances sometimes opposed, on one side
the electors, on the other the supranational institutions, so that the gap between
representatives and represented can become insurmountable. Furthermore,
the post-economic crisis parliamentary opposition is no longer declined in singular but, because of electoral fragmentation it has multiplied its subjects.
It is therefore necessary as a future task to proceed to a reconsideration and institutionalization of the opposition. The focus is not on establishing a right to co-legislate, or to obstructionism, or to attribute veto powers, but to reorient the function of the opposition and provide it with new instruments, which can range from the revision of the rules for the constitution of parliamentary groups, or the creation of the Office of the Chief of the opposition, to which faculties and rights can be recognized, the scheduling of plenary sessions of control, or fixing the order of bussiness.