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Cortes Generales

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The Cortes Generales (Spanish for General Courts or Cortes Españolas, Spanish Courts) is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house) and the Senate (the upper house). The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution. Moreover, the lower house has the power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister. However, because Spain is a European Union (EU) member state, it shares its legislative authority with the council and parliament of the EU.

History of the Cortes

Origins: the Feudal Age (8th-12th centuries)

The system of Cortes arose in the Middle Ages as part of feudalism. A Corte was an advisory council made up of the most powerful feudal lords closest to the king. The Cortes of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of León were combined from 1188 AD, first Spanish government with some claim to being representative. Prelates, nobles and commoners remained separated in the three estates within the Cortes. The king had the ability to call and dismiss the Cortes, but, as the lords of the Cortes headed the army and controlled the money, the King usually signed treaties with them to pass bills for war at the cost of concessions to the lords and the Cortes.

The rise of the bourgeoisie (12th-15th centuries)

With the reappearance of the cities near the 12th century, a new social class started to grow: people living in the cities were neither vassals (servants of feudal lords) nor nobles themselves. Furthermore, the nobles were experiencing very hard economic times due to the Reconquista; so now the bourgeoisie (Spanish burguesía, from burgo, city) had the money and thus the power. So the King started admitting representatives from the cities to the Cortes in order to get more money for the Reconquista. The frequent payoffs were the Fueros, grants of autonomy to the cities and their inhabitants. At this time the Cortes already had the power to oppose the King's decisions, thus effectively vetoing them. In addition, some representatives (elected from the Cortes members by itself) were permanent advisors to the King, even when the Cortes was not.

The Catholic Monarchs (15th century)

Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs, started a specific policy to diminish the power of the bourgeoisie and nobility. They greatly reduced the powers of the Cortes to the point where they simply rubberstamped the monarch's acts, and brought the nobility to their side. One of the major points of friction between the Cortes and the monarchs was the power of raising and lowering taxes. It was the only matter that the Cortes had under some direct control; when Queen Isabella wanted to fund Christopher Columbus's trip, she had a hard time battling with the bourgeoisie to get the Cortes' approval.

The Imperial Cortes (16th-17th centuries)

The role of the Cortes during the Spanish Empire was mainly to rubberstamp the decisions of the ruling monarch. However, they had some power over economic and American affairs, especially taxes. The Senate appeared here, as a royally appointed legislature, in contrast to the bourgueois lower house.

Cortes catalan

The Siglo de oro, Spanish Golden Age of literacy, was a dark age in Spanish politics: Netherlands declared itself independent and started a war, while some of the last Habsburg monarchs did not rule the country, leaving this task in the hands of viceroys governing in their name, the most famous being the Count-Duke of Olivares, Philip IV's viceroy. This allowed the Cortes to become more influential, even when they did not directly oppose the King's decisions (or viceroys' decisions in the name of the King).

Cortes in the Realms of Aragon and Navarre

The states of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) and the Kingdom of Navarre were self-governing entities separate from Castile, until the Nueva Planta Decrees of 1707 abolished this autonomy and united Aragon with Castile in a centralised Spanish state. The abolition in the realms of Aragon was completed by 1716, whilst Navarre retained its autonomy until 1833.

A Cortes (or Corts in Catalonia and Valencia) existed in each of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and Navarre. It is thought that these legislatures exercised more real power over local affairs than the Castilian Cortes did. Executive councils also existed in each of these realms, overseeing the implementation of decisions made by the Cortes.

Cádiz Cortes (1808-14) and the Three Liberal Years (1820-23)

Cádiz Cortes operated as a government in exile. France under Napoleon had taken control of most of Spain during the Peninsular War after 1808. The Cortes found refuge in the fortified, coastal city of Cádiz. General Cortes were assembled in Cádiz, but since many provinces could not send representatives due to the French occupation, substitutes were chosen among the people of the city - thus the name Congress of Deputies. Liberal factions dominated the body and pushed through the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Ferdinand VII, however, tossed it aside upon his restoration in 1814 and pursued conservative policies, making the constitution an icon for liberal movements in Spain. Many military coups were attempted, and finally Col. Rafael del Riego's one succeeded and forced the King to accept the liberal constitution, which resulted in the Three Liberal Years (Trienio Liberal). The monarch not only did everything he could to obstruct the Government (vetoing nearly every law, for instance), but also asked many powers, including the Holy Alliance, to invade his own country and restore his absolutist powers. He finally received a French army (the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis) which only met resistance in the liberal cities, but easily crushed the National Militia and forced many liberals to exile to, ironically, France. In his second absolutist period up to his death in 1833, Ferdinand VII was more cautious and did not try a full restoration of the Ancien Regime.

The First Republic Parliament (1873–1874)

When the monarchy was overthrown in 1873, the King of Spain was forced into exile. The Senate was abolished because of its royally appointed nature. A republic was proclaimed and the Congress of Deputies members started writing a Constitution, supposedly that of a federal republic, with the power of Parliament being nearly supreme (see parliamentary supremacy, although Spain did not use the Westminster system). However, due to many problems (mainly illiteracy of the people) Spain was not ready to become a republic; after several crises the republic collapsed, and the monarchy was restored in 1874.

The Restoration Cortes (1874–1930)

The regime just after the First Republic is called the Restoration. It was formally a constitutional monarchy, with the monarch as a rubberstamp to the Cortes' acts but with some reserve powers, such as appointing and dismissing the Prime Minister and appointing senators for the new Senate, remade as an elected House.

Soon after the Soviet revolution (1917), the Spanish political parties started polarizing, and the left-wing PCE and PSOE blamed the Government for supposed election fraud in small towns (caciquismo), which was incorrectly supposed to have been wiped out in the 1900s by the failed regenerationist movement. In the meantime, spiralling violence started with the murders of many leaders by both sides. Deprived of those leaders, the regime entered a general crisis, with extreme police measures which led to a dictatorship (1921–1930) during which the Senate was again abolished.

The Second Republic Parliament (1931–1939)

In the first elections after the dictatorship, the republican parties lost by almost two thirds, but won in all province capitals and big cities (where caciquismo was not present; also, some say that the republicans actually won nationally). The King left Spain, and a Republic was declared. The Second Spanish Republic was established as a presidential republic, with a unicameral Parliament and with a President of the Republic as the Head of State. He had the power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister on the advice of Parliament (or just hearing it before) and to dissolve the Parliament and call for new elections. The first term was the constituent term, with the ex-monarchist leader Niceto Alcalá Zamora as President of the Republic and the Jacobin leader Manuel Azaña as Prime Minister. The majority in the Cortes (and thus, the Government) was held by a coalition between Azaña's party and the PSOE. A remarkable deed is universal suffrage, allowing women to vote, a provision highly criticized by socialist leader Indalecio Prieto, who said the Republic had been backstabbed. Also, for the second time in Spanish history, some regions were granted autonomous governments within the unitary state. Many on the extreme right rose up with General José Sanjurjo in 1932 against the Government's social policies, but the coup was quickly defeated.

   
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