Legal anomalies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A constitutional analysis Tirant lo Blanch

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a challenge to the rule of law in Spain that forced the Government to declare three states of alarm. Two nationwide and one limited to a series of municipalities in the Community of Madrid. This crisis has had an impact on numerous fields, since together with the legal one, it would be necessary to refer, among others, to the health, economic, political, social, cultural, etc. Our Constitutional Court recognizes in its ATC 40/2020, of April 30 that “it is the first time that our current democracy has seen the need to face a challenge of this magnitude (?) that has put the institutions to the test democracy and to society itself and the citizens”. Undoubtedly it has meant a serious crisis in our democracy. but not of democracy. The constitutional order has been stressed but has not been questioned at any time. No one was prepared for a crisis of this magnitude. The present work addresses it mainly from the field of constitutional law. There are two areas affected by this crisis: that of the fundamental rights of the citizenry and that of the functioning of public powers. There have been anomalies, sometimes very serious, in both areas that need to be corrected for the future. The contributions of the different authors from the perspective that time also gives are aimed at their detection and analysis with lege ferenda proposals in order to become material for reflection in the face of future legislative reforms.