Ley Paccionada
| Ley Paccionada | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Cortes Generales | |
| |
| Territorial extent | Navarre |
| Enacted by | Cortes Generales |
| Enacted | 16 August 1841 |
| Signed by | Baldomero Espartero (regent) |
| Signed | 16 August 1841 |
| Commenced | 16 August 1841 |
| Related legislation | |
| Convention of Vergara; Foral Confirmation Act of 1839 | |
| Status: In force | |
The Ley Paccionada (Spanish: Ley Paccionada, "Pact Law" or "Compromise Act"), formally the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of the Province of Navarre (Spanish: Ley de Modificación de Fueros de la Provincia de Navarra), is a Spanish statute approved by the Cortes Generales on 16 August 1841 during the regency of General Baldomero Espartero.[1] The Act extended to Navarre the political and judicial organisation in force across the rest of Spain, while preserving for the province a regime of economic and administrative autonomy exercised by the Foral Provincial Council of Navarre (Diputación Foral y Provincial de Navarra).[1]
The qualifier paccionada (literally "agreed by pact") refers to the procedure by which the text was drafted, which derived from the commitment offered by Espartero at the end of the First Carlist War in the so-called Convention of Vergara. That commitment was given legislative form in the Foral Confirmation Act of 25 October 1839, which provided that as soon as circumstances permitted, the modifications required by the constitutional system would be introduced in the particular legislation of Navarre after first hearing the foral authorities.[1]
The Ley Paccionada has remained the institutional basis of the special economic and administrative regime enjoyed by Navarre since 1841. It is formally in force at the present day and is recognised as a "historical right" by the Improvement of the Charter (Amejoramiento del Fuero) of 1982, whose final provision affirms its validity except in those points where it conflicts with the Improvement.[2]
Background
[edit]The defeat of the Carlist forces in the First Carlist War was sealed by the agreement known as the Convention of Vergara, signed at Oñate on 29 August 1839 between the Liberal general Baldomero Espartero and the Carlist commander Rafael Maroto, and proclaimed at Vergara in front of the troops of both sides two days later.[1]
The convention set out commitments concerning the release of prisoners, the recognition of the officer ranks of the Carlist army, the integration of Carlist soldiers into the Liberal army, and provisions for war widows and orphans. Its principal political undertaking was that the Liberal general would recommend to the monarchy the preservation of the fueros of the Basque Provinces and of Navarre, territories where Carlist support had been particularly strong and in which the defence of the foral system had been one of the rallying causes of Carlism.
Barely two months later, the commitment was given the form of law by Queen Isabella II in the Confirmation of Fueros Act of 25 October 1839, which confirmed the fueros of Navarre and the Basque Provinces while envisaging the legislative modifications needed to bring those regimes into line with the constitutional system.[3][1]
With the suppression of the Royal Council and the Council of the Kingdom of Navarre along with the rest of the institutions of the ancien régime in Spain, the province was represented in the drafting of the Act by the Provincial Council of Navarre, drawn mainly from the local Liberal middle classes. The principal figure on the Navarrese side of the negotiations was José Yanguas y Miranda, secretary of the Provincial Council. The text was finally enacted by the Cortes Generales on 16 August 1841.[4]
Provisions
[edit]The Act consists of 26 articles dealing with the political, administrative and judicial organisation of the province of Navarre, as well as the tax regime and the administration of Crown property.[5]
Through it, Navarre acquired a bundle of economic and administrative powers different from those of the other provinces of Spain. These competences, exercised by the Provincial Council of Navarre, conferred on Navarre the character of a foral province (provincia foral) and on its provincial body the designation of Foral and Provincial Council of Navarre.
Under Article 10, the provincial council became the superior administrative body of the province, taking over much of the fiscal and patrimonial functions that had been performed by the former Royal Council of Navarre and the Council of the Kingdom of Navarre. The Act granted the council an unusually broad margin of intervention and tutelage over the activity of the municipalities and concejos of Navarre (Article 6).[6] As a further peculiarity, Article 8 provided that, as had been the case for the Council of the Kingdom, the new Provincial Council should be composed of seven members elected by the historic merindades of Navarre.
The Act extended to Navarre the general structure of judicial and military administration. The pre-constitutional office of viceroy was suppressed and replaced at Pamplona by a regular military command of the kind found in the other Spanish provinces. Pamplona was also designated as the seat of a territorial audiencia. In the judicial sphere, however, despite the introduction of the general structure of courts, the Act confirmed the full validity of the private foral law of Navarre.
The Act introduced no change to the traditional Navarrese system of usage of communal property or of the mountains and pastures owned by the Crown, and maintained the existing exemption from the use of sealed paper.[7] It did extend to Navarre the state monopolies on tobacco and salt, but recognised a share for the provincial council in the proceeds, as well as in the customs duties collected at the Spanish-French border posts in Navarre.[8]
Of particular importance, the Act did not extend to Navarre the general Spanish tax system. In its place it established an arrangement by which the province was to pay into the public treasury a single global sum, which was the only contribution Navarre would make to the general expenses of the State.[9] The provincial council was left a wide margin of autonomy as to how that sum was to be raised, so that the cadastral system of taxation by wealth was not introduced in Navarre. This arrangement inaugurated the system of economic agreements (convenios económicos) that the later Improvement of the Charter would take up and that remains in force today.
Controversies over the nature of the Act
[edit]During the 19th and 20th centuries, debate developed in both legal scholarship and politics over the true nature of the 1841 Act and, in particular, over whether the Spanish parliament could modify or repeal it without the prior agreement of Navarre. Three principal interpretations of its character have been advanced.[10]
The first holds that the Act is an ordinary statute, freely modifiable by the Cortes like any other. This view was already defended in the 19th century by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and has been taken up in more recent scholarship by jurists such as Eduardo García de Enterría and Tomás-Ramón Fernández, as well as by Navarrese authors including Rafael de Navascués, Pedro Larumbe and Demetrio Loperena.[10]
A second view maintains that, despite its formal character of a statute, the Ley Paccionada is in substance a pact or covenant that cannot be modified unilaterally. According to this interpretation, in 1841 Navarre retained the condition of a kingdom that negotiated an agreement of mutual obligations with the monarchy, so that the resulting legislation cannot be altered by one party alone. Prime ministers of Spain such as Juan Prim and Práxedes Mateo Sagasta defended this position in the 19th century, as did José Alonso Ruiz, Minister of Justice in 1841 and a native of Navarre,[11] Serafín Olave, Arturo Campión, Eladio Esparza and Rafael Aizpún,[12] Tomás Rodríguez Garraza, Jaime Ignacio del Burgo and Víctor Manuel Arbeloa.[10]
A third, intermediate strand of doctrine accepts that the Act has the formal character of an ordinary statute and that there was no prior pact between the parties before its enactment but merely consultations in the form of negotiations; nevertheless, it argues that there was a political will on both sides to settle the modification of the fueros in transactional terms. This view was held by Pablo Ilarregui and Fulgencio Barrena, both negotiators commissioned by the Provincial Council of Navarre, and has been taken up by authors such as José Antonio Razquin Lizarraga and Ignacio Olábarri.[13]
Legacy
[edit]The Ley Paccionada inaugurated the modern foral regime of Navarre and the bilateral economic agreement (convenio económico) that distinguishes the financing of Navarre from that of the common-regime regions of Spain. The arrangement was preserved when the rest of the Basque Provinces lost their full foral powers after the Third Carlist War in 1876, and it served as a precedent for the later restoration of the Concierto Económico in the Basque Country. The Act remains formally in force and is recognised as a historical right by the 1982 Improvement of the Charter, which integrated its principles into the constitutional system of post-Francoist Spain.[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alli Aranguren, Juan Cruz (2012). "La interpretación jurisprudencial y doctrinal de la Ley de Reforma de los Fueros de Navarra de 16 de agosto de 1841". Iura Vasconia (in Spanish). 09: 336.
- ↑ "Sinopsis del estatuto de Navarra" (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 December 2013.
- ↑ "Parte Oficial" (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (in Spanish). No. 1812. 26 October 1839. p. 1.
- ↑ Alli Aranguren, Juan Cruz (2012). "La interpretación jurisprudencial y doctrinal de la Ley de Reforma de los Fueros de Navarra de 16 de agosto de 1841". Iura Vasconia (in Spanish). 09: 341–343.
- ↑ Text of the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of Navarre
- ↑ Article 6 of the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of Navarre, 16 August 1841.
- ↑ Article 22 of the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of Navarre.
- ↑ Articles 17 and 18 of the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of Navarre.
- ↑ Article 25 of the Law for the Modification of the Foral Regime of Navarre.
- 1 2 3 Alli Aranguren, Juan Cruz (2012). "La interpretación jurisprudencial y doctrinal de la Ley de Reforma de los Fueros de Navarra de 16 de agosto de 1841". Iura Vasconia (in Spanish). 09: 346–347.
- ↑ AA.VV. (2004). Ley paccionada de Navarra de 1841: homenaje al Ministro D. José Alonso Ruiz (in Spanish). Madrid: Ministerio de Justicia.
- ↑ Aizpún Tuero, Rafael (1952). "Naturaleza jurídica de las Leyes forales de Navarra". Príncipe de Viana (in Spanish) (46–47). ISSN 0032-8472.
- ↑ Olábarri Gortázar, Ignacio (1992). "La controversia en torno a la ley de modificación de los Fueros (Ley Paccionada) de 16 de agosto de 1841" (PDF). Cuadernos de Sección. Historia y Geografía (in Spanish) (19). Donostia: Eusko Ikaskuntza. ISSN 0212-6397.
Bibliography
[edit]- Alli Aranguren, Juan Cruz (2012). "La interpretación jurisprudencial y doctrinal de la Ley de Reforma de los Fueros de Navarra de 16 de agosto de 1841". Iura Vasconia (in Spanish). 09.
- Olábarri Gortázar, Ignacio (1992). "La controversia en torno a la ley de modificación de los Fueros (Ley Paccionada) de 16 de agosto de 1841" (PDF). Cuadernos de Sección. Historia y Geografía (in Spanish) (19). Donostia: Eusko Ikaskuntza. ISSN 0212-6397.
External links
[edit]- Text of the Ley Paccionada (Government of Navarre)
- Text at Spanish Wikisource