Fruit of the joint initiative of the Venice Commission, this Permanent Representation and the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (CEPC) of Spain, the collective book Estado de Derecho, democracia y globalización. Una aproximación a la comisión de Venecia en su XXX Aniversario (State of Law, democracy and globalization. An Approach to the Venice Commission on its 30thAnniversary) – which has just been published by the CEPC and which I have co-directed together with Josep Maria Castellà, member for Spain of the Venice Commission until May 2022, and Simona Granata-Menghini, Secretary-Director of the Venice Commission – sees the light with the purpose, on the 30th Anniversary of the Commission for Democracy through Law, Enlarged Partial Agreement of the Council of Europe better known as the Venice Commission, to look backwards and forward as well as to make it known, in itself and in its approaches to the challenges of the Rule of Law, democracy and globalization, to catalyze the knowledge about it of those who live it and think of it in Spanish , and to become a reference of special relevance because of the who and of the what.
Who of more than thirty authors among whom, along with the co-directors, figures such as Marcelino Oreja, Secretary General of the Council of Europe under whose mandate the initiative to create the Commission arose, Álvaro Gil-Robles, first Commissioner of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Gianni Buquicchio, Honorary President and referent of the Venice Commission during those three decades, first as Secretary and later as President, and Luis López Guerra, former Vice President of the European Court of Human Rights; as well as members of the Venice Commission on behalf of Spain and of other Ibero-American countries throughout these three decades, and jurists of the Venice Commission and the Council of Europe.
In relation to the what, the book invites us to travel through an analytical itinerary in four stages or parts. It begins with the global approach to the Venice Commission in the perspective of the past and the future and its contribution to democracy and the international order, offered by Marcelino Oreja, Álvaro Gil-Robles, Gianni Buquicchio, Simona Granata-Menghini and myself, to which it is added the analysis of its recent doctrinal formulation on especially relevant issues in relation to Spain, such as the reform of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court, the Citizen Security Law and the criminalization of proposals for radical constitutional changes respectively, by Paloma Biglino, Asunción de la Iglesia and Teresa Freixes. After that, it approaches us to its doctrine and contribution on the Rule of Law in the second part and on democracy in the third. Thus, starting from its conceptualization of the Rule of Law, in the second part it addresses some fundamental aspects of it, such as constitutional reform, constitutional justice, judicial independence, its doctrine on the Ombudsman, its relations with the European Court of Human Rights and the projection in its doctrine, and its role in the crisis of the Rule of Law in the European Union, through the chapters of Manuel Aragón, Javier Tajadura, Juan José Romero, José Luis Vargas, Carmen Comas-Mata, Luis López Guerra and Amaya Úbeda, and Carlos Closa and Gisela Hernández. Likewise, the third part begins with the pluralist, constitutional and representative conception of democracy of the Venice Commission, and then guides us through some of its defining elements, such as electoral regimes, the right to passive suffrage for women and gender parity, regulation of political parties and the temporary limits to political power, with the respective contributions of Josep Maria Castellà, Rafael Rubio, Janine Otálora, Oscar Sánchez Muñoz and Ángel Sánchez Navarro. Finally, as an Enlarged Partial Agreement of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission is not only projected within the Council of Europe, but also globally, and very particularly in geographical areas which are especially relevant for Spain, such as Latin America and the Mediterranean. Thus, in the fourth and final part, it addresses the need for jurists in a post-bipolar world and the ultimate meaning of the Venice Commission today, its contribution to constitutionalism and the separation of powers in Ibero-America, and its cooperation with the countries of the South of the Mediterranean, by Pere Vilanova, José Luis Sardón and Serguei Kouznetsov
In addition to its printed edition, the book has been published in an electronic edition of free access, which can be downloaded at the following link on the CEPC website:
https://www.cepc.gob.es/sites/default/files/2022-09/a-1035-estadoaccesible-ok.pdf . This facilitates its dissemination to whoever in the world wants to approach the Venice Commission in Spanish or is interested in the Rule of Law, democracy and globalization, and thus becomes an instrument for its and their projection.
The Venice Commission, the CEPC and this Permanent Representation have organized a presentation event of the book - whose invitation we are sending you attached - in hybrid format on October 24 at 4:00 p.m., which will be held simultaneously at the Council of Europe premises in Strasbourg (Agora Building, room G3) and in those of the CEPC in Madrid, so that face-to-face participants in one will be virtual in the other. It will also be broadcasted in streaming so that it can be followed online, at a time compatible with the public on the other side of the Atlantic, and it will be recorded on video for those who may be interested to view it later. In addition to its co-directors and the Director of the CEPC, Yolanda Gómez, it will count with the participation of Gianni Buquicchio, Marcelino Oreja and Álvaro Gil-Robles.
The initiative for the elaboration and publication of this book is part, on one side, of the cooperation carried out, with the collaboration of this Permanent Representation, between the Venice Commission and the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between them, which has led to undertake different joint initiatives, including the International Seminar "The Venice Commission and Spain: a shared heritage", held on April 13, 2021 on the occasion of its XXX Anniversary, which is at the origin of this publication. On the other side, of the line of action carried out by Spain to promote the projection and knowledge of the Council of Europe in the Spanish speaking world, which has been materialized in other initiatives such as the publication, since the past May 5th, of CoE’s website in Spanish, the translation into Spanish of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and of the doctrine of the Venice Commission, and the production of other publications such as the collective book Construyendo los derechos humanos en Estrasburgo. El Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos y el Consejo de Europa (Building Human Rights in Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe) (2020), at the initiative of the European Court of Human Rights and the Permanent Representation of Spain in the Council of Europe on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Council of Europe in 2019 and the seventieth anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2020, with the aim of becoming a reference on the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights and its work to promote them. Coordinated by the Judge for Spain at the ECtHR, María Elósegui, and the Spanish jurists at it, Carmen Morte, Anna Mª Mengual and Guillem Cano, in its 30s counts on the contributions of the majority of Spanish officials at the CdE, the previous judges for Spain at the Court and this Ambassador Permanent Representative, and offers a complete approach to the ECHR system and the CoE and its mechanisms, becoming a reference book on these in the world in Spanish, and covering the previously existing gap on them.