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Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century, the system of Parliamentary committees established under legislation approved by the Congress of Deputies and the Senate differentiated between individual or ordinary committees and special committees. The former were deemed prominent but could not always legislate, whereas the second were temporary, and in many cases able to legislate.
The requirements to render Parliament more active and efficient led to amendments to Regulations governing those Chambers in 1918. That reform affected both the way Parliamentary work was organised, with the creation of legislative standing committees and also the procedures for debate, introducing anti-obstructive techniques.
The purpose of adopting the system of legislative standing committees was to try and provide parliament with efficient instruments for developing its legislative role, which had up until that time been dealt with by temporary and special parliamentary bodies. The difficulties afflicting the Spanish Parliamentary institution and Spanish political life in general were nevertheless too great and could not be resolved simply by Parliamentary reform.
The fact that the legislative standing committees were not very active was recorded in the verbatim reports and a study of those reports for the following legislatures up until both Parliamentary Houses were dissolved in 1923 clearly shows the lethargy which befell the great majority of committees that were set up.
