The system of distribution of competences between the State and the Autonomous Communities, established in Title VIII of the Constitution as well as in the different Statutes of Autonomy, has a system of jurisdictional protection, regulated in articles 161 et seq. of the Constitution, as well as in Organic Law 2/1979, of 3 October, of the Constitutional Court. In particular, with regard to the system for the distribution of competences, the Constitutional Court has the competence to hear
- The remedy of constitutionality against laws and normative provisions with force of law.
- Conflicts of competence between the State and the Autonomous Communities or between them.
In practice, the development of the Spanish autonomous system has required recourse to the jurisdictional decision of the Court to resolve the disputes raised between the State and the Autonomous Communities on the content and scope of the competences attributed to each of these levels. In this way, for years now, the basic role that constitutional jurisprudence has played to clarify the scope of the competences and responsibilities of the State and the Autonomous Communities has been assumed.
The specific content of these disputes, as well as the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, are systematically presented in these two types of documents prepared by the technical services of the Ministry:
- The Monthly Conflict Report. Information on the evolution of the jurisdictional disputes between the State and the Autonomous Communities is collected in a cumulative and updated manner.
- Quarterly Bulletins of Conflict between the State and the Autonomous Communities. It includes information on the decisions of the Constitutional Court, the holding of bilateral cooperation commissions and the evolution of the conflict in the current year, as well as various statistics relating to the accumulated conflict between the State and Autonomous Communities.
