MITOS Y REALIDADES DE LA JURISDICCIÓN CONSTITUCIONAL DE AMPARO: HECHOS, DERECHO, PRONUNCIAMIENTOS, ADMISIÓN, COSTES

Abstract

Individual complaints procedure to protect fundamental rights is a tool in the hands of the Spanish Constitutional Court: many of its problems are not a consequence of the procedure itself but of the institution wielding it (a new court trying to find a proper position in a preexisting judicial structure subject to a Supreme Court) and of theoretical insufficiency: the Kelsenian model is not useful to explain the role of a constitutional court when protecting human rights in the face of other courts. Building on those premises, some thoughts are given to the main ingredients of the constitutional jurisdiction to protect fundamental rights: facts and evidence, construction of constitutional and “ordinary” legislation, remedies, admission procedures (recently reformulated by Organic Act 6/2007) and deficiencies in the economics of the proceedings