Linked to the State's democratic character
the Spanish Constitution includes, in Title I,
the Declaration of Rights, Article 23, which acknowledges
the right to participate in public affairs, in politics,
but which refers to public affairs.
The Constitutional Court sees this in a slightly restrictive way,
as it considers this right only shows
in the processes of development of the State's will.
It is a right linked to the exercise of people's sovereignty,
which the Constitution attributes to the people and hence,
it only refers to the institutions open to all the citizens,
and not to other elective processes,
which are connected to a more specific condition,
as in union, professional, or university elections.
They cannot be considered acts of political participation.
They can be linked to other rights, even recognized as fundamental,
but not to this right of participation, in Article 23, paragraph 1.
This article also says this right can be exercised in two ways:
directly, the citizens directly shape the State's will,
or they elect their representatives.
Since the direct democracy institutions, as the referendum,
and, at least according to Article 23,
the jurisdictional protection of the exercise of this right
through the popular legislative action,
since these instruments
have a limited recognition in the Constitution,
the exercise of the right to political participation appears
in free and periodical elections by universal suffrage.
This is the right to vote and stand
in electoral processes which appoint the members of the Courts
and the rest of institutions or representative bodies
at different territorial levels:
regional governments, parliaments, local councils, European Parliament, etc.
Two more notes help define the content of this right:
Firstly, the connection which the Constitutional Court
has found between the right to political participation,
recognized in Section I of Article 23,
and to the access to representative public office,
which is in Section II of this Article.
Thus, it derives, for the Constitutional Court,
that there is a need to protect the statute of the representatives
since they make the citizens' right of participation possible.
This statute includes not only the access to the office in equal conditions,
which is explicitly mentioned in Section I of Article 23,
but also the citizens' tenure,
of which a representative cannot be deprived in an illegitimate way.
It has a special incidence on the parliamentary life
and on the organization and functioning of local councils,
the right to exercise the functions of the office,
because in case that right were denied,
it would violate the citizens' right to participate in political affairs.
Secondly, this right cannot be applied
to the foreign residents in Spain,
but under the conditions established by Section II in Article 13.
They can only exercise the right to vote and to stand in local elections,
not in regional or national elections, Parliament and Senate,
and the recognition of this right for the legal foreigners living in Spain
must present reciprocal conditions.
This must be done under treaty and law in reciprocal conditions.
Thus, foreign legal residents in Spain will only be recognized
inasmuch as their national state recognizes this right to the Spaniards living there.