Still Alive?

Party Bans in Spain

Abstract

Party ban in Spain was effective in the fight against Herri Batasuna and terrorism. Fortunately, in Spain today, there is no terrorism threatening democracy linked to a specific political party. Today, the Basque radical left-wing and pro-independence parties comply with the law. This is the understanding of the Constitutional Court, most of the doctrine and a large part of society. However, Spanish democracy presents other problems and risks, some of them shared with other European countries. But problems such as polarisation, populism and institutional deterioration cannot be solved by this mechanism. Currently, the outlawing of parties has only been proposed for (especially Catalan) pro-independence parties.