Members of Parliament Freedom of Speech and King's Inviolability as Exclusion Grounds from Criminal Liability

Abstract

Few institutions have been so studied and questioned, from Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, as the immunities vested in public offices holding the powers of the State. One of those immunities refers to the «inviolability», a personal-functional guarantee that prevents the procedure to be open, given its legal nature of immunity from jurisdiction in domestic law. With a general overview, which goes beyond its analysis as an exclusively criminal guarantee and abandons the sterile debate about its inclusion in the theory of crime, this article deals with the definition, effects and jurisprudential evolution of the scope of application of the two inviolabilities of our legal system that are currently under political and judicial discussion: parliamentary inviolability —freedom of speech— and the king’s inviolability, states in Articles 71.1 and 56.3 of the Spanish Constitution, respectively (DER2017/86336-R, MCIN/AIE/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER Una manera de hacer Europa).