De Juan Carlos I a Felipe VI: ¿Algo nuevo bajo el sol?

Abstract

[eng] On June 2 2014, Juan Carlos I publicly announced his decision to abdicate the Crown of Spain, which became effective through Organic Law 3/2014, of June 18. This abdication, and the consequent succession to the Throne by Felipe VI, has opened a new era in the future of the monarchy in Spain. This is a good opportunity to make an assessment of the long reign of Juan Carlos I, in which we can distinguish three well defined and distinct stages: the first (1975-1982), when the new king gained growing political prestige and popular affection; the second (1982-2010), of normalization of the parliamentary monarchy in Spain; and the third (2010-2014), from the beginning of the so-called 'Urdangarin case' until the abdication, marked by the king's accelerated personal as well as institutional decline. This succession to the Spanish Throne also moves us to try to determine if the arrival of the new king has brought changes (substantial, but also formal, given the symbolic importance of the institution) in comparison with the previous reign or if, once the novelty has worn off, we find that nothing has really changed. To these considerations, we add other reflections on the nature of the abdication (convenient or necessary, voluntary or forced), the legal mechanism by which it became effective, the doubts raised by the legal status of the former King or, finally, the dispute over the boundaries of criticism of the monarchy in Spain in light of the doctrine of the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. This work deals with all these issues.