Libertatea religioasă și democrația: experiența spaniolă
Religious freedom and democracy: the Spanish experience

Summary/Abstract: The author presents the Spanish experience in the field of religious freedom, its historical evolution and the present-day situation. The Spanish model is not a closed one: the public authorities and the denominations maintain a permanent dialogue while trying to find solutions to the problems that come up. The author warns about the danger of excessively increasing the importance of the laity principle such as to impose it as a prevalent principle, which may incur certain limitations of religious freedom, while on the contrary its actual role is to better protect this freedom. Threats against the security of the State cannot serve as an excuse for limiting the rights deriving from religious freedom. The Religious Freedom Act provides that a religious entity may not be dissolved except for the case of a final verdict by a court of law, on application of the Criminal Code or on request by the representatives of that entity itself.

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