Approach to the law of emergency in the light of the constitutional jurisprudence

Abstract

The constitutional provision to face emergency situations contained in article 116 of the Constitution must be in accordance with Organic Law 4/1981, of June 1. This Organic Law is part of the constitutionality block and describe in detail the different causes that enable the declaration of each of the emergency states foreseen in the Constitution. However, the Constitutional Court has ensured that the grounds for the adoption of these statements are, not so much the causal situations, but rather the mechanisms for their adoption and control, as well as their effects. In this way, the “new” constitutional emergency right is structured around the intensity of the measures to be adopted, in the control function of Congress over the Government and, indirectly, in the loss of power of the autonomous communities that see diluted their ordinary competences in cases of emergency.