CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF SPAIN

Start and end dates: 1933 - 1939

Volume:

Institutional History / Biographical Sketch; Archival History

Court of Constitutional Guarantees of the 2nd Spanish Republic

The beginning of the Spanish Civil War meant, as for other State institutions, a serious crisis for the Court of Constitutional Guarantees and, in the end, its disappearance, as long as it was linked to the Republican regime. In the early stages, its functioning was hampered by the non-appearance, for various reasons, of both its members and the personnel assigned to its service. By means of Decrees of 25 and 28 August, the Government determined a new composition of the Court, reduced to seven full members and six alternates, and various provisions were approved to facilitate its functioning. From that moment on, the Court practically ceased its activity. The course of the war meant that the Court, together with the Government, moved to Valencia, with the exception of its Secretary General and some officials. A total of six plenary sessions were held in that city between January and December 1937. Following the decree of 28 October 1938 of the new Negrín government, the capital of the Republic was established as Barcelona and the Court moved there, holding its first plenary session at the new headquarters on 16 February 1938. Finally, although the Court Plenary agreed to move on 23 January 1939 to Girona, following the Government, the truth is that from that moment on the existence of the Court can be considered to have ended.

The very scarce documentation that is preserved in the Constitutional Court comes from the Supreme Court, in whose deposits it was found and which in 1991, at the initiative of the President of the Constitutional Court, Francisco Tomás y Valiente, entered into the latter. Despite several attempts, it has not been possible to locate any other documentary trace of the Court of Constitutional Guarantees archive which, most probably, was reused for paper manufacturing. Already during the operation of the Court of Constitutional Guarantees, part of it had that destination, as can be seen in the record of the session of 8 September 1937, which reflects the authorisation for "the destruction of the documents existing in the Court, issued by the Electoral Colleges in the designation of delegates who last year elected the President of the Republic, keeping in the archive, as they already are, the minutes of the proclamation of the Provincial Assemblies and the decisions of the Court referring to them, and taking into account the shortage of paper pulp due to current circumstances, and that the data contained in these documents is the same as that already recorded in the archived minutes, it is agreed that they should be sent to the paper mills, where they can be put to new use".

• ARCHIVE OF THE COURT OF CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES (SECOND SPANISH REPUBLIC)
  1. Government and administration
     • 1.1. Personnel management
       • 1.1.1. Disciplinary system
         • 1.1.1. Disciplinary files
  2. Constitutional jurisdiction
     • 2.1. Secretariat
       • 2.1.1. Processing control
         • 2.1.1.1. Minute books
         • 2.1.1.2. Books of resource registration
         • 2.1.1.3. Books of outgoing correspondence registration
         • 2.1.1.4. Information files

• Access conditions: free (generally, through access to digital reproductions for the sake of preserving the originals)
• Reproduction conditions: unconditional
• Language of documentation: Spanish
• Physical characteristics and technical requirements
• State of conservation: good
• Note on publications:
  • El Tribunal de Garantías Constitucionales de la II República: colección documental / Jorge Urosa Sánchez... [et al.]. Madrid: Community of Madrid, 1999. ISBN 84-451-1714-9
  • El Tribunal de Garantías Constitucionales de la II República: la primera experiencia de justicia constitucional en España / Martín Bassols Coma. Madrid, Boletín Oficial del Estado: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2010. ISBN 978-84-340-1926-3