“Your Highness, with the oath you will take, you symbolize your submission to the law.” The then President of the House of Representatives, Gregorio Peces-Barba, summed up the meaning of the oath very well in so few words on January 30, 1986 of the Constitution, which the heirs of the Constitution are obliged to adopt in Spain. Crown. The words were addressed to the then Prince Felipe, but now apply entirely to his daughter, Princess Leonor, who will take her own oath (or pledge) before the Cortes Generales next Tuesday, October 31st. It is an event attended by the Kings, the Government and a multitude of guests with institutional positions, but which has only two protagonists: the Princess and the Cortes Generales. The rest, including the Kings, are pure spectators. In fact, none of them could have been present and the act would have the same value in legitimizing the princess as a future head of state.
There was no precedent for the swearing-in ceremony of Prince Philip and there were doubts as to whether the president of the government (then the socialist Felipe González) should intervene, which seemed interesting to both King Juan Carlos and González himself, perhaps even emphasizing the political neutrality of the monarchical Institution. It was Peces-Barba’s opposition to the slightest partisan significance of the event that established the absolutely neutral model that will be pursued next Tuesday. “Neither the king nor the government has anything to do with this law,” even said the then President of the House of Representatives. What was crucial was the exact form of the oath the prince had to take, so that “upholding and enforcing the constitution and laws and respecting the rights of citizens and autonomous communities” came before his own loyalty to the king. The Spanish monarchy, thought Fischbart, is not the property of a king, but an institution created by the citizens themselves.
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Don Juan Carlos never swore by the Constitution, but there is no doubt that he promoted it with all his might, because he fully understood that the only way to legitimize the monarchy was to be founded by the Franco regime and by to be supported by the most rancid Catholics. Spanish society should find a truly democratic support. “They have just legalized me,” he said publicly on the day the Constitutional Commission approved Article 1.3, according to which the political form of the state is parliamentary monarchy.
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The serious accusations against Don Juan Carlos for his repeated tax fraud and the storage of part of his assets in tax havens have damaged the image of the institution, prompting a restructuring by Felipe VI. and from now on also required by Princess Leonor. Felipe VI has introduced some improvements regarding the transparency of the Royal Family, but there is still room for improvement in terms of the clarity that must surround all activities of the Royal Family and a much greater responsibility in this regard than has been assumed by the government so far of the day.
If the King Emeritus has undoubtedly caused serious damage to the monarchy, it would also be fair to recognize that with his institutional work as head of state he has established a model that can hardly be blamed. Don Juan Carlos attributed his success and that of the institution to his ability to keep the Crown away from any kind of partisan conflict and to strictly adhere to the 1978 Constitution. This iron political neutrality of the King gave the institution a remarkable stability and It is intended to be a point of reference in the new role that Princess Leonor will assume from now on.
The swearing-in ceremony next Tuesday represents the commitment between the future heir to the head of state and the constitution before the General Cortes. It would be logical that all those elected in the last elections would be present, including of course the Podemos deputies who legitimately supported the Establish a republic but recognize themselves as Spanish citizens. It is the independence supporters who do not accept being citizens of the Spanish state who have already announced that they will not be present. The strange thing is that they can speak out against the law precisely because they are Spanish citizens.
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