El dilema unicameralismo-bicameralismo en la Segunda República española

Abstract

One of the essential characteristics of the Spanish constitutionalism is the duality of Assemblies in the Cortes, uninterrupted since the promulgation of the Royal Statute in 1834. Nevertheless, the 1931 Constitution came to break this tradition and became, along with the 1812 Constitution, the only one in our history that has created a unicameral Parliament. The aim of this paper is to analyse the causes which led to establish a single Chamber, which was one of the main novelties the Second Republic offered regarding the State's organic structure. To do so, we start from a multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the exegesis of legal texts, the analysis of parliamentary sources (the Journal of Debates) and the contrast with the doctrinal contributions. The study focuses first on the process of constitutional elaboration; revises next the dialectical dispute between the supporters of unicameralism and those who leaned towards maintaining the bicameral structure of the Cortes, and concludes with a final assessment about the consequences the elected model had for the consolidation of the republican regime and the potential benefits the conservation of the Senate would have provided. Copyright: