Local regulatory power and the crisis of the law

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evolution of the regulatory power of local authorities in these forty years of local democratic government in Spain. It does so by focusing on three essential ideas: complexity of the current system versus the simplicity of the previous one; increase or expansion of the matters that local regulations deal with, especially municipal ordinances; and, above all, the unique position of such norms in the system of legal sources, in particular because of their peculiar relationship with the law.