The Spanish Constitutional Court organised the XVI Trilateral Meeting of the Constitutional Courts of Italy, Portugal and Spain, which was held in Santiago de Compostela, on the occasion of the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the pilgrimage of Saint Francis of Assisi. During their stay in the Galician capital, the members of the delegations of the three constitutional courts were received by the President of the Galician Regional Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The twelve magistrates who constitute the Plenary Session of the Court had the opportunity to exchange legal opinions with their Portuguese and Italian colleagues on the "multi-level protection of fundamental rights", as well as to jointly analyse the consequences arising from the fact that the protection of fundamental rights is entrusted both to the constitutional courts of the States and to the Court of Justice of the European Union as well as to the European Court of Human Rights. Some of the most important recent decisions of the three constitutional courts have also been debated. Magistrate Santiago Martínez-Vares was in charge of giving a presentation on "La tutela multinivel de los derechos fundamentales" (full text).
The Constitutional Court was represented by its President, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, its Vice-President, Adela Asua, and by Magistrates Luis Ignacio Ortega, Encarnación Roca, Andrés Ollero, Fernando Valdés Dal-Ré, Juan José González Rivas, Santiago Martínez-Vares, Juan Antonio Xiol, Pedro González-Trevijano, Ricardo Enríquez and Antonio Narváez. The delegation of the Italian Constitutional Court was composed of President Giuseppe Tesauro and Judges Giorgio Lattanzi, Aldo Carosi and Marta Cartabia. The President of the Portuguese Constitutional Court, Joaquim de Sousa Ribeiro, and the magistrates Ana María Guerra Martins, Maria José Rangel de Mesquita and Pedro Machete also participated in the event. The Secretary General of the Constitutional Court, Andrés Gutiérrez Gil, and his Italian homologue, Carlo Visconti, as well as the heads of the President´s cabinet of the Portuguese and Spanish courts, Inês Horta Pinto and José Manuel Pascual, and Maria Antonietta Biasella, Chief of Protocol of the Italian Court, were also present on this occasion.