RIGHT TO VOTE VS AGE OF MAJORITY

Abstract

This article analyses the possibility of reducing the suff rage age in Spain without a constitutional reform. Contrary to other Fundamental Laws, the Spanish Constitution regulates the age of majority, setting the age at 18. Th e General
Electoral Regime Organic Law reserves the exercising of the right to vote for adults. An enlargement to minors of the age of 16 and 17 of this faculty can change the current constitutional concept of the age of majority, because it implies the moment when the exercising of political rights is permitted. Nevertheless, if we study Spanish historic Law and Comparative Law, we fi nd that this modifi cation changes the institution but doesn’t denature it, for two reasons: 1) Age of majority is linked principally to the capacity to act from a civil point of view, not from a political one; and 2) it is not a clear division between those who can exercise their human rights an those who cannot; in fact, it is the culmination of gradual access to exercising these rights; today, a lot of rights are exercised, total or partially, by minors. Conclusion: we have a constitutional institution of age of majority that is fl exible enough to accept a legal modifi cation that gives to minors of the age of 16 and 17 the possibility of exercising the right to vote without the necessity of implementing a constitutional reform.