Legislative proposals for a better regulation of religious diversity in Spain

Abstract

The different contemporary sociological studies dealing with religiosity in Spain show us a plural and diverse society, very far away from the homogeneous catholic majority of 1980, when the Constitutional Law on Religious Diversity was approved, being the essential tool for the constitutional development of religious liberty and the management of religious diversity. The doctrine has highlighted the lack of coupling between the Constitutional Law and the new social reality. Hence, the claim of the necessity of establishing a new Constitutional Law on Religious Conscience. Such possibility entered the political agenda during the last term of the Government of President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, not being legally set in force. Afterwards, the question disappeared from the political agenda of the successive governments, it was necessary to retake such initiative for a better management of religious diversity. However, even acknowledging that the development of a new Constitutional Law would be the best option, we must not dismiss the possibility of establishing a new Law on the basic principles of the management of religious diversity without overturning the actual Constitutional Law. Moreover, the Government could correct, through the publication of different Royal Decrees, its lack of coupling to the social reality by including developments of the content of the fundamental right to freedom of religion. Such Royal Decrees would allow to set in force in Spain the reasonable accommodation as the best technique for the management of our religious diversity.