The right of parliamentarians to obtain administrative documentation. New jurisprudential perspectives as a result of its increasing judicialization

Abstract

For just over five years, for the first time in our democratic history, the right of parliamentarians to collect documentation from public administrations has been judicialized in the contentious-administrative way. A cluster of cases with a single common focus: tense government-parliament relations in the Valencian Community. This conflict has led, in the course of these years, to a high number of resolutions of both the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community and the Supreme Court. A total of more than forty sentences that have had a considerable impact on the delimitation of this right. This article examines these judicial resolutions and offers a global analysis of the interpretive criteria contained in them. A task of exegesis that has been carried out without losing sight of the jurisprudence dictated by the Constitutional Court on this same issue.

Summary:
1. Introduction. 2. The jurisprudential interpretation of this right: Recent applications (and modulations) by the jurisdiction contentious-administrative doctrinal criteria consolidated in the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. 2.1. Typology and defining elements of this right. 2.2. Potentially conflicting situations derived of the exercise of this right. 3. Its jurisdictional guarantee. 3.1. Plurality of ways to satisfy this right. 3.2. Reference to a controversial procedural issue: Is the contentious-administrative jurisdiction competent to judge this type of government acts? 3.3. Additional considerations on «effectiveness» and «suitability» of the jurisdictional guarantee of this right. 4. A final note about the (potential) abusive exercise of this right. 5. Jurisprudential Annex.