Aspen Institute España held, on May 27, a lunch-discussion with Juan José Solozabal, Professor of Constitutional Law at the Autonomous University of Madrid. The debate is part of the Justice and Civil Society Program of Aspen Institute España.

The Justice and Civil Society Program is a new initiative that brings the “Citizens Lawyers Forum” seminar, organized by Aspen Institute Spain in collaboration with the ESADE Law School in 2013 and 2014, to the Spanish context. The “Justice and Civil Society” seminars , in turn, are connected to the “Justice and Society” seminars of The Aspen Institute, USA, which for four decades has brought together a wide range of legal experts to discuss the value of Justice and the relationship between public policies and fundamental rights. Along the same lines, but focusing on the Spanish reality, the “Justice and Civil Society” program is an open dialogue forum between prestigious representatives of the different legal professions existing in Spain (not exclusively practicing lawyers in their different realities), including judges, lawyers, notaries, public officials, representatives of NGOs and academics.

Juan José Solozábal has been a professor of Constitutional Law since 1986. Doctor of Law from the Complutense University of Madrid and Master in Politics (London School of Economics), he has expanded his studies of Constitutional Law at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. He is currently a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, having previously been Director of its Department of Public Law as well as Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Castilla La Mancha. He has been a member of the Central Electoral Board. He is Secretary of the Journal of Political Studies, and a founding member of the Basque collective “Miguel de Unamuno”. He has been Secretary General of the Spanish Association of Political Science and Constitutional Law. He is a member of the European Institute of Federalism at the Swiss University of Freiburg and is a collaborating professor at the Center for European Studies at Nuffield College, Oxford. He directs the magazine “Cuadernos de Alzate”. He is the author of the books The First Basque Nationalism – Madrid l975 – The Sanction and Promulgation of the Law in the Parliamentary Monarchy – Madrid l987 -and The constitutional bases of the Autonomous State, Madrid 1998; and he has directed the edition of two publications on The Basque Political System, 1985; The Constitutional Court and its Jurisprudence, l989 and Freedom of expression in Spanish law, 1996. Professor Solozábal has published various works on the institutional coverage of pluralism, especially on federalism, nationalism and territorial autonomies, which are collected in his books The constitutional bases of the Autonomous State (Madrid 1998) and Nation and Constitution (Madrid 2004). He has also carried out several studies on the General Theory of Fundamental Rights, particularly on Freedom of Expression, an issue that some of his latest publications deal with. He has also brought to light various works on electoral law.