With the advancement of the general elections announced by Pedro Sánchez for next Sunday, July 23, 2023, after the debacle suffered by the PSOE and the rest of the left in 28M, the democratic machinery starts rolling. Among the procedures that must be completed is the dissolution of the Cortes.

Following the definition of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE)”, the Cortes Generales are the “chambers that, on behalf of the people, exercise the legislative power and control the action of the Government”. They are the Senate (the Upper House) and the Congress of Deputies (the Lower House), which make up the Spanish Parliament, constituted and regulated in Title III of the Constitution.

Dissolving the Cortes means anticipating the moment in which the period for which they were elected expires (the end of the legislature). “The dissolution of Parliament is nothing other than the decision that puts an early end to this representative body, decaying, in theory, all its procedures, powers and prerogatives,” states the synopsis available on the Congress website.

The procedure for the dissolution of the Cortes is established in article 115 (Title V) of the Spanish Constitution of 1978:

1. The President of the Government, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers, and under his exclusive responsibility, may propose the dissolution of Congress, the Senate or the Cortes Generales, which will be decreed by the King. The decree of dissolution will fix the date of the elections.

2. The dissolution proposal may not be presented when a motion of censure is in process.

3. A new dissolution will not proceed before one year has elapsed since the previous one, except as provided in article 99, section 5 [If after the period of two months, from the first investiture vote, no candidate has obtained the confidence of Congress, the King will dissolve both Chambers and call new elections with the endorsement of the President of Congress].

The decision to dissolve usually rests with the government. Said power is a governmental attribute, specifically of the president, although at the same time it is an act of the head of the State, that is, of the King. The performance of the monarch is regulated, due to a single decision of the Government.

The steps followed by Pedro Sánchez to call the early general elections illustrate the procedure itself:

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