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Democratic Deficits in the Constitional Process [MARCEL MATEU] In order to understand a political system it is useful to know its genesis, since it is in its origin where the most important part of its problems are located. The 1978 Spanish Constitution is the conditional outcome of a political transition process with a great Franco dictatorship «legacy». The reform path left its footprint in the result. And we cannot forget that the constitutional elaboration procedures have a direct effect in its legitimacy.
In this article, we put forward some of the limits that conditioned the last Spanish constitutional process, as a counterpoint to the opinion of the majority, which is ¿according to the author¿ excessively laudatory and not very critic, using some of the views that have emphasized the darkest aspects of the transition period.
Twenty years later, acknowledging the undeniable virtues of the rule of law and the Welfare State due to the passing of the Constitution, it may be very useful to focus on the lacks that can be detected there. In the particular historical moment when a new generation of people, who did not participate either directly or indirectly in the constitutional process, join our society, it becomes much more necessary to know -and bear in mind-the factual and formal conditionings that influenced the present constitutional framework, in order to reopen the debate -according to the actual historic circumstances- on the advantages and obstacles of the strongest options adopted by the framers in 1978 about the form of the State, the system of Government and the federal structure.
