Law 52/2007, of 26 December, which recognizes and extends rights and establishes measures in favor of those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and dictatorship.

Contents index

JOHN CHARLES I

KING OF SPAIN

To all who see and understand the present.

Sabed: That the General Courts have approved and I come to sanction the following law.

The spirit of reconciliation and harmony, and of respect for pluralism and the peaceful defence of all ideas, which guided the Transition, allowed us to endow ourselves with a Constitution, that of 1978, which legally translated that desire for the reunion of the Spanish, articulating a social and democratic State of law with a clear integrative vocation.

The spirit of the Transition gives meaning to the most fruitful constitutional model of coexistence that we have ever enjoyed and explains the various measures and rights that have been recognized, since the very beginning of the entire democratic period, in favour of the people who, during the decades prior to the Constitution, suffered the consequences of the civil war and the dictatorial regime that followed it.

Despite this legislative effort, there are still initiatives to be taken to respond fully and definitively to the demands of these citizens, raised both at the parliamentary level and by different civic associations. These are legitimate and fair demands, which our democracy, appealing once again to its founding spirit of harmony, and within the framework of the Constitution, cannot fail to meet.

For this very reason, this Law responds to the statement of the Constitutional Commission of the Congress of Deputies that on November 20, 2002 unanimously approved a Non-Law Proposition in which the body representing the citizenry reiterated that “no one can feel legitimized, as happened in the past, to use violence in order to impose their political convictions and establish totalitarian regimes contrary to the freedom and dignity of all citizens, which deserves the condemnation and revulsion of our democratic society”. This Law assumes this Declaration as well as the condemnation of Franco’s regime contained in the Report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe signed in Paris on March 17, 2006, which denounced the serious human rights violations committed in Spain between 1939 and 1975.

It is time, therefore, for Spanish democracy and the living generations that enjoy it today to honor and recover forever all those who directly suffered the injustices and grievances produced, for one or other political or ideological reasons or religious beliefs, in those painful periods of our history. Of course, to those who lost their lives. With them, to their families. Also to those who lost their freedom, when they suffered imprisonment, deportation, confiscation of their property, forced labour or internment in concentration camps inside or outside our borders. Also, finally, to those who lost their homeland by being pushed into a long, heartbreaking and, in so many cases, irreversible exile. And finally, to those who at different times fought for the defense of democratic values, such as the members of the Corps of Carabineros, the international brigadistas, the guerrilla fighters, whose rehabilitation was unanimously requested by the plenary of the Congress of Deputies of 16 May 2001, or the members of the Democratic Military Union, which dissolved itself with the holding of the first democratic elections.

In this sense, the Law establishes the basis for the public authorities to carry out public policies aimed at the knowledge of our history and the promotion of democratic memory.

This Law is based on the consideration that the various aspects related to personal and family memory, especially when they have been affected by conflicts of a public nature, are part of the legal status of democratic citizenship, and as such are addressed in the text. In this sense, an individual right to personal and family memory of each citizen is recognized, which finds its first manifestation in the Law in the general recognition that is proclaimed in its article 2.

In fact, this precept makes a general proclamation of the unjust nature of all the condemnations, sanctions and expressions of personal violence produced, for unequivocally political or ideological reasons, during the Civil War, as well as those that, for the same reasons, took place in the subsequent Dictatorship.

This general declaration, contained in article 2, is complemented by the provision of a specific procedure for obtaining a Personal Declaration, of rehabilitative and restorative content, which is opened as a right to all the injured, and which they or their family members may exercise.

Article 3 of the Act declares the illegitimacy of courts, jurors or bodies of any administrative nature created in violation of the most basic guarantees of the right to a fair trial, as well as the illegitimacy of personal sanctions and sentences imposed for political, ideological or religious reasons. It thus unequivocally underlines the current lack of legal force of those provisions and resolutions that are contrary to human rights and contributes to the moral rehabilitation of those who suffered such unjust sanctions and sentences.

In this sense, the Law includes a derogatory provision that expressly deprives of legal force those rules issued under the Dictatorship that are manifestly repressive and contrary to fundamental rights with the dual purpose of proclaiming their formal expulsion from the legal system and preventing their invocation by any administrative and judicial authority.

Articles 5 to 9 establish the recognition of various improvements in economic rights already included in our Legislation. In this same direction, the right to compensation is provided for all those people who lost their lives in defence of democracy, of the democracy that we all enjoy today, and who had not received the compensation due so far (art. 10).

Various precepts are collected (arts. 11 to 14) that, also in this area, in response to a very legitimate demand from many citizens, who ignore the whereabouts of their relatives, some still in mass graves, provide measures and instruments for the public administrations to facilitate, to the interested parties who request it, the tasks of locating, and, where appropriate, identifying the missing, as a final proof of respect for them.

A series of measures are also established (arts. 15 and 16) in relation to the symbols and memorials commemorating the Civil War or the Dictatorship, based on the principle of avoiding any exaltation of the military uprising, the Civil War and the repression of the Dictatorship, in the conviction that citizens have the right to do so, that public symbols are an occasion for meeting and not for confrontation, offense or grievance.

The legislator considers it fair to make a double singularized recognition. First, the volunteer members of the International Brigades, who will be allowed access to Spanish nationality without having to renounce the nationality they hold until now (art. 18); and, also, the citizens’ associations that have been involved in defending the dignity of the victims of political violence referred to in this Law (art. 19).

In order to facilitate the collection and right of access to historical information about the Civil War, the Law strengthens the role of the current General Archive of the Spanish Civil War, based in Salamanca, integrating it into the Documentary Center of Historical Memory also based in the city of Salamanca, and establishing that it is given the transfer of all existing documentation in other state centers (arts. 20 to 22).

This law extends the possibility of acquiring Spanish nationality to descendants up to the first degree of those who were originally Spanish. This satisfies a legitimate claim of Spanish emigration, which uniquely includes the descendants of those who lost Spanish nationality through exile as a result of the Civil War or the Dictatorship.

In short, this Law aims to contribute to closing wounds still open in Spaniards and to give satisfaction to citizens who suffered, directly or in the person of their relatives, the consequences of the tragedy of the Civil War or the repression of the Dictatorship. It wants to contribute to this from the full conviction that, thus deepening in the spirit of the reunion and concord of the Transition, it is not only these citizens who are recognized and honoured, but also Spanish Democracy as a whole. It is not the task of the legislator to implement a certain collective memory. But it is the duty of the legislator, and the duty of the law, to repair the victims, to consecrate and protect, with maximum normative force, the right to personal and family memory as an expression of full democratic citizenship, to promote constitutional values and to promote knowledge and reflection on our past, to avoid the repetition of situations of intolerance and violation of human rights as they were then lived.

This is the commitment to which the legal text and its legal consequences respond.

Index of contents

1. The purpose of this Law is to recognize and expand rights in favor of those who suffered persecution or violence, for political, ideological, or religious reasons, during the Civil War and the Dictatorship, to promote their moral reparation and the recovery of their personal and family memory, and to adopt complementary measures aimed at suppressing elements of division among citizens, all in order to foster cohesion and solidarity among the various generations of Spaniards around constitutional principles, values and freedoms.
2. This Law, as a public policy, seeks to promote democratic values and principles, facilitating knowledge of the facts and circumstances that occurred during the Civil War and the Dictatorship, and ensuring the preservation of documents related to that historical period and deposited in public archives.

Index of contents

1. As an expression of the right of all citizens to moral reparation and to the recovery of their personal and family memory, the radically unjust nature of all convictions, sanctions and any forms of personal violence produced for political, ideological or religious reasons during the Civil War, as well as those suffered by the same causes during the Dictatorship, is recognized and declared.
2. The reasons referred to in the previous section include membership, collaboration or relationship with political parties, trade unions, religious or military organizations, ethnic minorities, secret societies, Masonic lodges and resistance groups, as well as the exercise of behaviours linked to cultural, linguistic or sexual orientation options.
3. It also recognizes and declares the injustice caused by the exile of many Spaniards during the Civil War and the Dictatorship.

Index of contents

1. It declares the illegitimacy of the courts, jurors and any other criminal or administrative bodies that, during the Civil War, were constituted to impose, for political, ideological or religious reasons, convictions or sanctions of a personal nature, as well as that of their resolutions.
2. As they are contrary to the law and violate the most elementary requirements of the right to a fair trial, the illegitimacy of the Tribunal for the Suppression of Masonry and Communism, the Tribunal of Public Order, as well as the Tribunals of Political Responsibilities and War Councils constituted for political, ideological or religious reasons in accordance with the provisions of article 2 of this Law is declared.
3. Likewise, the sentences and sanctions issued for political, ideological or religious reasons by any court or criminal or administrative body during the Dictatorship against those who defended the previous institutional legality, sought the restoration of a democratic regime in Spain or tried to live according to options protected by rights and freedoms today recognized by the Constitution are declared illegitimate due to defects of form and substance.

Index of contents

1. The right to obtain a Declaration of Reparation and Personal Recognition is recognized to those who during the Civil War and the Dictatorship suffered the effects of the resolutions referred to in the articles anteriores.Este right is fully compatible with the other rights and reparative measures recognized in previous rules, as well as with the exercise of the actions that may have occurred before the courts of justice.
2. The affected persons shall have the right to apply for the Declaration and, in the event that they have died, the spouse or person linked by a similar relationship of affectivity, their ascendants, their descendants and their collaterals up to the second degree.
3. Likewise, public institutions may request the Declaration, subject to the agreement of their collegiate body of government, in respect of those who, lacking a spouse or family members mentioned in the previous section, have held relevant office or activity in them.
4. The persons or institutions referred to in the preceding paragraphs may be of interest to the Ministry of Justice in the issuance of the Declaration. To this end, they may provide all the documentation on the facts or the procedure in their possession, as well as any background information deemed appropriate.
5. The Declaration referred to in this Law shall be compatible with any other formula of reparation provided for in the legal system and shall not constitute a title for the recognition of the patrimonial responsibility of the State or of any Public Administration, nor shall it give rise to economic or professional effect, reparation or compensation. The Ministry of Justice shall refuse to issue the Declaration if it does not comply with the provisions of this Law.

Index of contents

1. In order to complete the protective action established by Law 5/1979, of September 18, on the recognition of pensions, medical-pharmaceutical assistance and social assistance for widows, children and other relatives of Spaniards who died as a result or on the occasion of the last Civil War, the letters a) and c) of number 2 of its first article are amended, which are worded as follows:

a) Por heridas, enfermedad o lesión accidental originadas como consecuencia de la guerra.

c) As a consequence of actions or political and trade union opinions, when a personal and direct causal relationship can also be established between the Civil War and the death.’

2. The pensions recognized under the provisions of the previous section will have economic effects from the first day of the month following the date of entry into force of this Law, being applicable, where appropriate, the rules that regulate the expiration of effects in the Passive Class System of the State.

Index of contents

1. The amount of orphan's pensions in favour of non-disabled orphans over 21 years of age caused by non-civil servants under Laws 5/1979 of 18 September and 35/1980 of 26 June is set at 132.86 euros per month.
2. The orphan ' s pensions referred to in this article shall be subject to the system of economic supplements in force and shall be subject to the revaluations established by the General State Budget Laws for each year.
3. The provisions of the two preceding paragraphs shall have economic effect from the first day of the month following the date of entry into force of this Law, without prejudice to the rules governing the lapse of effects in the Passive Class Regime of the State.

Index of contents

1. In order to incorporate cases excluded from the granting of compensation for time spent in prison during the Dictatorship, paragraphs one and two of the eighteenth additional provision of Law 4/1990, of 29 June, on General State Budgets for the year 1990, are amended as follows:"One. Those who prove that they have suffered deprivation of liberty in penitentiary establishments or in Disciplinary Battalions, in any of their modalities, for three or more years, as a result of the cases contemplated in Law 46/1977, of October 15, and had reached the age of sixty years on December 31, 1990, will be entitled to receive compensation for one time according to the following scale:Three or more years of imprisonment: 6.010.12 ".For every three additional full years: 1.202.02 ".Two. If the person entitled to this compensation has died, and by 31 December 1990 could have been 60 years of age or older, the surviving spouse, who is a pensioner of widowhood for this reason or who, even if he does not have this status, proves to be the widower's spouse, shall be entitled to it."
2. A paragraph two bis and a paragraph seven are added to the eighteenth additional provision of Law 4/1990 of 29 June on State Budgets with the following wording:"Two bis. Compensation of 9,616.18 " shall be awarded to the surviving spouse of a person who, having suffered deprivation of liberty for a period of less than three years as a result of the cases contemplated in Law 46/1977, of 15 October, has been sentenced by them to the death penalty effectively executed and has not been recognized in his favour, for this circumstance, a pension or compensation from any of the public social protection systems. "Seven. Those who consider themselves entitled to the benefits set out in paragraphs one and two above, whether the deceased themselves or their surviving spouses or widows' pensioners for that reason, must expressly apply to the aforementioned Directorate General of Personnel Costs and Public Pensions."

Index of contents

With effect from January 1, 2005, a new letter u) is added to article 7 of the consolidated text of the Law on Personal Income Tax, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 3/2004, of March 5, which will be worded as follows:

"u) The compensation provided for in the legislation of the State and the Autonomous Communities to compensate for the deprivation of liberty in penitentiary establishments as a result of the cases contemplated in Amnesty Law 46/1977 of 15 October."

Index of contents

1. Persons who have received from 1 January 1999 until the date of entry into force of this Law the compensation provided for in the legislation of the State and the Autonomous Communities to compensate the deprivation of liberty in penitentiary establishments as a result of the cases contemplated in Amnesty Law 46/1977 of 15 October, may request, in the form and deadlines determined, the payment of a quantified aid in 15 percent of the amounts that, for this reason, would have been included in the Personal Income Tax declaration of each of these tax periods.
2. If the persons referred to in paragraph 1 above have died, the right to assistance shall be vested in their heirs, who may apply for it.
3. The aid received under the provisions of this article will be exempt from the Income Tax of Natural Persons.
4. By order of the Minister of Economy and Finance, the procedure, the conditions for obtaining it and the competent body for the recognition and payment of this aid will be determined.

Index of contents

1. In view of the exceptional circumstances surrounding his death, the right to compensation in the amount of € 135,000 is granted to the beneficiaries of those who died during the period from 1 January 1968 to 6 October 1977, in defence and defence of democratic freedoms and rights.
2. The beneficiaries of the compensation referred to in the first paragraph of this article are the children and the spouse of the deceased person, if they are not legally separated or in the process of separation or matrimonial nullity, or the person who has been living with them permanently with a similar relationship of affectivity to that of the spouse for at least the two years immediately prior to the time of death, unless they have had common descendants, in which case the mere coexistence will suffice.
3. Subsidiarily, if the former do not exist, the parents, grandchildren, brothers of the deceased person and the children of the cohabiting person will be beneficiaries, in a successive and exclusive order, when they are financially dependent on the deceased.
4. Where a number of persons belonging to a group of persons entitled to compensation are present, the maximum total amount shall be shared equally between all those entitled to compensation on the same basis, except where the spouse or person with a similar affective relationship and the children of the deceased are present, in which case the aid shall be shared 50 per cent between the spouse or person with a similar affective relationship and the children as a whole.
5. Compensation shall be paid provided that no compensation or financial compensation has been received for the same acts or, having been received, is less than the amount determined in this article.
6. The Government, by Royal Decree, shall determine the conditions and procedure for the granting of the compensation provided for in this article.
7. The beneficiaries of the compensation established in this article will have a period of one year, from the entry into force of the Royal Decree referred to in the previous paragraph, to submit their application to the Commission mentioned therein.

Index of contents

1. The Public Administrations, within the framework of their competences, will facilitate to the direct descendants of the victims who so request the activities of investigation, location and identification of the persons who disappeared violently during the Civil War or the subsequent political repression and whose whereabouts are ignored. The provisions of the preceding paragraph may be applied in respect of entities that, constituted before 1 June 2004, include the development of such activities among their purposes.
2. The General Administration of the State shall draw up work plans and establish grants to cover expenses arising from the activities referred to in this article.

Index of contents

1. The Government, in collaboration with all public administrations, will draw up a protocol for scientific and multidisciplinary action that ensures institutional collaboration and adequate intervention in exhumations. It will also conclude the appropriate collaboration agreements to subsidize the social entities that participate in the work.
2. The Public Administrations shall draw up and make available to all interested parties, within their respective territorial scope, maps showing the grounds on which the remains of the persons referred to in the previous article are located, including all the additional information available on them.

The Government will determine the procedure and draw up an integrated map covering the entire Spanish territory, which will be accessible to all interested citizens and to which the data to be sent by the various competent public administrations will be incorporated.

The areas included in the maps will be subject to special preservation by their owners, in the terms that are established by regulations. Likewise, the competent public authorities will adopt measures aimed at their proper preservation.

Index of contents

1. The competent public administrations will authorize the prospecting tasks aimed at locating the remains of the victims referred to in article 11, paragraph 1, in accordance with the regulations on historical heritage and the protocol of action approved by the Government. The findings shall be immediately brought to the attention of the competent administrative and judicial authorities.
2. Public administrations shall, in the exercise of their powers, establish the procedure and conditions under which the direct descendants of the victims referred to in Article 11(1), or entities acting on their behalf, may recover the remains buried in the corresponding graves, for identification and eventual transfer to another place.
3. In any case, exhumation shall be subject to administrative authorization by the competent authority, in which the existence of opposition by any of the direct descendants of the persons whose remains are to be transferred shall be weighed. To this end, and prior to the corresponding decision, the competent administration must give appropriate publicity to the applications submitted, in any case communicating their existence to the General Administration of the State for inclusion in the map referred to in the first paragraph of the previous article.
4. The remains that have been transferred and are not claimed will be buried in the cemetery corresponding to the municipal term in which they are located.

Index of contents

1. The carrying out of the activities of locating and possibly identifying or transferring the remains of the persons referred to in article 13, paragraph 1, is in the public interest and social interest, in order to allow, where appropriate and in accordance with articles 108 to 119 of the Law on Forced Expropriation, the temporary occupation of the lands where they are to be carried out.
2. For the activities set out in the preceding paragraph, the competent authorities shall authorise, except for justified reasons of public interest, the temporary occupation of publicly owned land.
3. In the case of privately owned land, descendants, or organizations legitimized in accordance with the previous paragraph, must request the consent of the holders of rights affected on the land in which the remains are found. If such consent is not obtained, the public administrations may authorize the temporary occupation, always after hearing of the rights holders affected, with consideration of their claims, and fixing the corresponding compensation payable by the occupants.

Index of contents

1. The Public Administrations, in the exercise of their powers, will take appropriate measures for the withdrawal of shields, badges, plates and other objects or commemorative mentions of personal or collective exaltation, of the military uprising, of the Civil War and of the repression of the Dictatorship. These measures may include the withdrawal of subsidies or public aid.
2. The provisions of the previous section shall not apply when the mentions are of strict private memory, without exaltation of the confronted, or when there are artistic, architectural or artistic/religious reasons protected by law.
3. The Government will collaborate with the Autonomous Communities and Local Entities in the elaboration of a catalogue of vestiges relating to the Civil War and the Dictatorship for the purposes envisaged in the previous section.
4. Public administrations may withdraw subsidies or aid to private owners who do not act in the manner provided for in paragraph 1 of this Article.

Index of contents

1. The Valley of the Fallen shall be strictly governed by the rules generally applicable to places of worship and public cemeteries.
2. No acts of a political nature or exaltors of the Civil War, of its protagonists, or of Franco’s regime can be carried out anywhere in the enclosure.

Index of contents

The Government, in collaboration with the other Public Administrations, will prepare a census of buildings and works carried out by members of the Disciplinary Battalions of Working Soldiers, as well as prisoners in concentration camps, Battalions of Workers and prisoners in Militarized Penitentiary Colonies.

Index of contents

1. In order to give effect to the right recognized by Royal Decree 39/1996, of 19 January, to the volunteers who were members of the International Brigades who participated in the Civil War from 1936 to 1939, the requirement to renounce their previous nationality required in article 23, letter b, of the Civil Code, with regard to the acquisition by letter of nature of Spanish nationality, will not apply.
2. By Royal Decree approved by the Council of Ministers, the requirements and procedure to be followed for the acquisition of Spanish nationality by the persons mentioned in the previous section will be determined.

Index of contents

It recognizes the work of associations, foundations and organizations that have stood out in defending the dignity of all victims of the political violence referred to in this Law. The Government may, by Royal Decree, grant such distinctions as it deems appropriate to the aforementioned entities.

Index of contents

1. In accordance with the provisions of Law 21/2005, of November 17, the Documentary Center of Historical Memory is constituted, based in the city of Salamanca.
2. The functions of the Documentary Center of Historical Memory are:

a) Maintain and develop the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War created by Royal Decree 426/1999, of March 12. To this end, and through the procedure that is determined by regulations, all original documents or reliable copies thereof relating to the Civil War of 1936-1939 and the subsequent political repression in museums, libraries or archives of State ownership will be integrated in this Archive, in which a digitized copy of the aforementioned documents will remain. Likewise, the General Administration of the State will proceed to the collection of the relevant oral testimonies linked to the indicated historical period for their referral and integration into the General Archive.

b) To recover, collect, organize and make available to interested parties the documentary funds and secondary sources that may be of interest for the study of the Civil War, the Franco dictatorship, the guerrilla resistance against it, the exile, the internment of Spaniards in concentration camps during the Second World War and the transition.

c) Promote historical research on the Civil War, Franco’s regime, exile and transition, and contribute to the dissemination of its results.

(d) To promote the dissemination of the Centre ' s funds and to facilitate the active participation of users and their representative organizations.

e) Grant grants to researchers, through prizes and scholarships, to continue their academic and research work on the Civil War and the Dictatorship.

(f) Collecting and making available to interested parties information and documentation on similar processes in other countries.

3. The structure and operation of the Documentary Center of Historical Memory will be established by Royal Decree agreed in the Council of Ministers.

Index of contents

1. The General Administration of the State shall approve, on an annual basis and with the allocation that in each case is established in the General Budgets of the State, a program of agreements for the acquisition of documents related to the Civil War or to the subsequent political repression that are carried out in public or private archives, national or foreign, either in original version or through any instrument that allows to archive, know or reproduce words, data or figures in fidelity to the original. The aforementioned documentary funds will be incorporated into the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War.
2. In accordance with the provisions of Law 16/1985, of June 25, on Spanish Historical Heritage, the documents working in private and public archives relating to the Civil War and the Dictatorship are declared as constituting the Documentary and Bibliographic Heritage, without prejudice to the provisions of article 22.

Index of contents

1. For the purposes of this Law, the right of access to the documentary funds deposited in the public archives and the obtaining of the copies that are requested is guaranteed.
2. The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall apply, in their own terms, to private archives held, in whole or in part, with public funds.
3. The public authorities shall adopt the necessary measures for the protection, integrity and cataloguing of these documents, in particular in cases of greater deterioration or risk of degradation.

Index of contents

The Government is authorized to carry out the necessary actions in order to organize and restructure the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War.

Index of contents

The provisions contained in this Law are compatible with the exercise of the actions and access to the ordinary and extraordinary judicial procedures established in the laws or in the international treaties and conventions signed by Spain.

Index of contents

Within one year of the entry into force of this Law, the Government shall establish the institutional framework to promote public policies relating to the conservation and promotion of democratic memory.

Index of contents

1. The Government is authorized, within six months, by Royal Decree, to determine the scope, conditions and procedure for granting extraordinary compensation in favour of those who have suffered incapacitating injuries as a result of acts and in the circumstances and under the conditions referred to in article 10, paragraph 1, of this Law.
2. The compensation provided for in this provision shall be recognized provided that no compensation or financial compensation has been received for the same acts from any of the public social protection systems.
3. The compensation provided for in this provision shall be paid directly to the incapacitated persons themselves and shall be non-transferable.

Index of contents

For the purposes of the application of Law 37/1984, of October 22, the personnel of the Merchant Navy that was incorporated into the Republican Army since July 18, 1936 will be considered included in the Decree of March 13, 1937 that established the incorporation into the naval reserve, the Decree of June 12, 1937 that applied the previous one fixing the entry and stagnation in the aforementioned reserve and the circular order of October 10, 1937 that approved the regulation of the aforementioned stagnation in development of the previous ones. The corresponding pension shall be paid provided that, in the same case, no financial compensation has been received, or, having been received, is less than the amount determined in the aforementioned provisions.

Index of contents

The management foundation of the Valley of the Fallen will include among its objectives to honor and rehabilitate the memory of all the people who died as a result of the Civil War of 1936-1939 and the political repression that followed it in order to deepen the knowledge of this historical period and constitutional values. It will also promote the aspirations of reconciliation and coexistence that exist in our society. All of this is in full compliance with the provisions of article 16.

Index of contents

1. Persons whose father or mother was originally Spanish may qualify for Spanish nationality of origin if they formalize their declaration within two years of the entry into force of this Additional Provision. This period may be extended by agreement of the Council of Ministers until the limit of one year.
2. This right will also be recognized for the grandchildren of those who lost or had to renounce Spanish nationality as a result of exile.

Index of contents

The Government, through the Ministry of Justice, shall, as soon as necessary to comply with the provisions of this Law, make the necessary provisions to facilitate access to the books of the death records of the Civil Registries under the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries.

Index of contents

the War Camp of July 28, 1936, of the National Defense Board approved by Decree number 79, the Camp of August 31, 1936 and, especially, the Decree of General Franco, number 55, of November 1, 1936: the Laws of Security of the State, of July 12, 1940 and of March 29, 1941, of reform of the Penal Code of crimes against the Security of the State, of March 29, 1941, of March 29, 1939, of March 29, of February 29, of February 29, of 1939

Index of contents

The Government and its members are authorized, within the scope of their respective competences, to make all necessary provisions for the development and application of the provisions of this Law.

Index of contents

This Law shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Gazette of the State, with the exception of the Seventh Additional Provision, which shall enter into force on the year of its publication.

Therefore,

I command all Spaniards, individuals and authorities, to keep and enforce this law.

Madrid, December 26, 2007.

JUAN CARLOS R.

The President of the Government,

JOSÉ LUIS RODRÍGUEZ ZAPATERO

Index of contents

Law 52/2007 of 26 December

Recognising and extending rights and establishing measures in favour of those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and the dictatorship

Royal Decree 1792/2008

On the granting of Spanish nationality to the volunteer members of the International Brigades

Royal Decree 1791/2008

On the Declaration of Reparation and Personal Recognition to those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship