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Spain : legal resources: Codes & Legislation

Subjects: Law: Foreign Law

Spanish Codes and Legislation Online

Citations in Spanish texts are often combination of article number and recognised abbreviation of the title of the code.

C.C. Código Civil
LEC Ley de Enjuiciamento Civil
C.P. Código Penal
LECr Ley de Enjuiciamento Criminal
C.Com. Código de Comercio
LOPJ Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial
LPA Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo
LPL Ley de Procedimiento Laboral
LJCA Ley de la Jurisdicción Contencioso Administrativa
LOREG Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General
LOTC Ley Orgánicadel Tribunal Constitucional


Finding your way around a Spanish statute

Finding your way round a Spanish statute

  1. At the head of the statute is the name of the department from which the statute originated (e.g. Comunitat Valenciana; Ministerio de Hacienda y Economía).
  2. Title. This includes the statute's official number and defines what type of legislation it is. There is no equivalent to the concise title of an English act, so legislation is cited by its official number, which is a sequential number and the year in which the statute was enacted, written in the format: nnn/aaaa (if the legislation is an orden the official number is preceded by three letters indicating the department which created the legislation). May indicate broad subject matter of the legislation.
  3. The body of the statute. If it's a law, it will be divided into títulos, and capítulos. A ley orgánica may be divided into libros, then subdivided into títulos and capítulos.
  4. If there is a final article, it may deal with any particular commencement details and list legislation which has been amended by this act

 

Common abbreviations  
Ley orgánica LO
Ley ordinaria L
Real decreto RD
Real decreto Ley RD-Ley
Real decreto Legislativo RDL
Ordén Ministerial OM

 

Abbreviation of type of legislation, unique numerical identifier/yyyy, date of month, title eg L 1/2000, de 7 de enero, de Enjuiciamiento Civil.

Followed by either citation to the official publication the Boletín Official (abbreviated to BOE) eg BOE núm. 7, de 8 de enero del 2000, pg. 575-728

or citation to

the private publication Repertorio Aranzadi Cronológico de Legislación (abbreviated to RCL) eg RCL 2000 34. (This refers to the Marginale at which the act is, it encompasses pp.122-296)

If you only have the BOE citation you can still find the act easily in RCL (without recourse to the indexes) as the BOE citation is printed on top of each page in the RCL.

 

Printed resources

The LawBod subscribed to legislation published by a private publishing house. However, the only official text for current legislation is that published in the Boletín oficial del estado 

Aranzadi Repertorio Cronológico de Legislación 1930 -  Spain 10
+ Indices Progresivos de Legislación/ Indices Auxilliaries de Legislación

Nuevo diccionario de legislación : toda la legislación española en vigncia al 31 diciembre 1974 (25v. Table in v.25 updates for 1975,1976,1977)
Spain 30 1974 

The LawBod has a considerable run of  volumes of older Spanish legislation, also available to Request from Closed Stacks

Democratic Memory

Noticias Juridicas

Noticias Juridicas is a legal news website from Wolters Kluwer which aggregates legal news from Spain. It summarises court decisions as well as offering more in-depth articles, and has a search function for jurisprudence and legislation.

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