# Rawls in Spain's parliament: public reason, polarisation and rules that make deputies give reasons

> John Rawls's idea of public reason asks judges, officials and candidates to justify their positions on constitutional essentials and basic justice with reasons every reasonable citizen could accept, a moral duty of civility the law cannot impose. Applied to Spain's Congress, where 70.1% of Spaniards told CEMOP in 2025 that tension had grown in a year, it asks for procedures that make reasons public and answerable on the questions that matter most. The radical-centre proposal: reasoned committee reports with a minority view on organic laws, as in the Bundestag; a two-month written government reply to committee reports, as at Westminster; and a monthly control session where questions on the rules of the game come with written reasons.

- URL: https://www.radicalcentre.eu/en/articles/rawls-spain-parliament-public-reason-polarisation
- Language: en
- Publisher: radical centre / centro radical
- Published: 2026-10-26
- Topic: Democracy & institutions
- Author: radical centre
- Licence: CC BY 4.0

## Key points

- Rawls's public reason covers constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, and binds most strongly judges, government officials and candidates for office.
- The duty of civility is moral and cannot be legally imposed, so rules should create occasions for giving reasons and leave the content of speeches free.
- In CEMOP's 2025 survey, 70.1% of Spaniards said political tension was higher than a year earlier, and no national party averaged 4 out of 10 on sympathy.
- Spain's Reglamento limits a plenary oral question, with answer and replies, to five minutes; Bundestag committee reports must give reasons and the minority's view.
- Our proposal: reasoned reports with minority views on organic laws, two-month written government replies to committee reports and a monthly session of reasoned questions.

The last control session of the 2024–25 parliamentary year in Spain's Congress, on 25 June 2025, ended the way many of them do. Europa Press described Popular Party benches chanting for ministers to resign and calling Sumar's ministers accomplices, and a run of calls to order from the Speaker, Francina Armengol, with two deputies left one warning away from expulsion. Two ministers called the chamber a swamp and the scene shameful.

Spaniards notice. The fifth National Survey on Political Polarisation by CEMOP, the University of Murcia's public-opinion research group, interviewed 1,525 adults by telephone between 20 May and 17 June 2025 and published its tables in December. Asked whether tension and confrontation in Spain were higher, the same or lower than a year earlier, 70.1% said higher and 2.4% lower. Asked to rate the four national parties from 0, antipathy and rejection, to 10, sympathy and attachment, respondents gave none of them an average of 4: PSOE scored 3.9, the PP 3.6, Sumar 3.2 and Vox 2.6. They put their agreement that media close to the other bloc manipulate their audiences at 8.2 out of 10. Our piece on [two iron blocs](/en/articles/two-iron-blocs-rules-that-reward-agreement) used the long-run data on bloc voting; this is the mood of 2025, and it is sour.

John Rawls gives a precise, modest account of what that chamber lacks.

## What public reason asks of a deputy

Rawls set out public reason in *Political Liberalism* (1993) and sharpened it in "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" (1997); our [explainer of the book](/en/articles/john-rawls-political-liberalism-explained) covers the wider argument. The part that matters for Congress is narrow.

Public reason covers constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's summary, that means the principles that structure government and the political process, such as who may vote, the basic rights and liberties of citizens, and the distribution of important resources like income and wealth. On ordinary legislation Rawls lets citizens and legislators vote their wider convictions without justifying them in public terms.

It binds most strongly in what he called the public political forum: the discourse of judges, of government officials, and of candidates for office and their campaign teams. A deputy at the rostrum stands right there. On those fundamental questions, officials should argue from political values that all reasonable citizens can share, starting with citizens as free and equal, and leave aside doctrines that half the country rejects. Rawls's wide view lets them bring their religious or philosophical convictions in at any point, provided proper public reasons follow in due course.

He called this the duty of civility, and he was clear that it is a moral duty that cannot be coercively imposed. That sets the limit for anyone who wants to write Rawls into parliamentary rules: a Speaker who sanctioned deputies for the content of their reasons would be acting against him. Spain's standing orders already police manners. Article 103 of the Reglamento del Congreso calls to order a deputy who uses words offensive to the dignity of the chamber, its members, state institutions or anyone else; article 104 removes the floor after a third call and lets the presidency strike the offence from the Diario de Sesiones. Those rules handle insults. What a Rawlsian parliament adds is room: places where reasons get written down, answered and kept on the record.

## Where Congress asks for reasons today

The Spanish rules ask for reasons in a few places and leave gaps in others. The government must send each bill with an explanatory memorandum and the background needed to judge it (article 109). An amendment to the articles needs only the concrete text proposed (article 110). The rapporteurs' report, the ponencia, is drafted within fifteen days on the basis of the text and the amendments (article 113), with no stated duty to explain why each amendment was taken or dropped. A plenary oral question must be the brief formulation of a single question, and the whole exchange of question, answer, rejoinder and reply may not exceed five minutes (article 188). Five minutes suits a slogan and a comeback. Written answers carry a twenty-day deadline (article 190), so the Reglamento already knows how to demand a considered reply.

Other European parliaments build reasons into the procedure itself. In the German Bundestag, rule 66 of the rules of procedure says committee reports on the items referred to them are normally written and must contain the lead committee's recommendation with its reasons, the view of the minority and the opinions of the other committees involved. At Westminster, the government is expected to reply to the recommendations of a select committee report within two months of publication, and the reply is published as a special report or a command paper. A cross-party committee sets out its reasoning, and ministers have to engage with it in writing.

## Rawls's duty, written into the standing orders

This is where the traditions meet. The left brings equal respect for every citizen: a majority of 176 deputies owes the other 174, and the voters behind them, an account of the basic rules in terms they can share, and minorities deserve protection from a majority that legislates its own whole view of life. The right and the liberal tradition bring a limited government that stays neutral among ways of life, the rule of law, and stable constitutional rules that survive a change of government because both blocs can defend them. What belongs to neither camp is procedure as a carrier of reasons. Rawls's duty stays moral; the standing orders give it time, paper and a deadline for an answer, so that arguments become public and testable.

In Spain much of what Rawls calls constitutional essentials passes through organic laws, which article 81 of the Constitution reserves for developing fundamental rights and public freedoms, approving statutes of autonomy and setting the general electoral regime, and which need an absolute majority of Congress in a final vote. Public reason belongs there, and the changes to the Reglamento can stay there too.

**Reasoned reports, with a minority view and a reply.** For organic laws, each amendment carries a short written justification, and the ponencia's report explains, amendment by amendment, why it was accepted or rejected, with a minority opinion written by the groups that lost, on the Bundestag model. When a committee of Congress approves a report on basic rights or on the rules of the political game, the government answers each recommendation in writing within two months, as at Westminster, and the committee debates the reply.

**A monthly session of reasoned questions.** Once a month, questions on constitutional essentials are filed a week ahead with the questioner's reasons, answered by the minister with reasons, and given a longer slot than five minutes. Both texts are published. The weekly duel carries on for everything else.

These rules leave ordinary legislation and free speech untouched, as Rawls would want. They give the most divisive questions a format where majority and minority reasons appear on the same page, so that a citizen who can't stand the other side can at least read why it voted as it did.

Miriam González launched Democracia 21 on 10 October saying Spain cannot go on with two iron blocs and nothing that favours consensus; we've [mapped her proposals](/en/articles/democracia-21-miriam-gonzalez-proposals-radical-centre) elsewhere. Rules that reward agreement change the incentives. These change the conversation, which is where [Isaiah Berlin's pluralism](/en/articles/isaiah-berlin-polarisation-europe-spain) and our proposal for [citizens' assemblies on value conflicts](/en/articles/citizens-assemblies-value-conflicts-spain-proposal) also point: disagreement recorded with its reasons, in public, where anyone can check it. Congress could trial the monthly session for a year and compare, as [Amartya Sen](/en/articles/sen-vs-rawls-comparison-or-ideal-justice) would, with the Diario de Sesiones as the evidence.

## FAQ

### What is public reason according to John Rawls?

It is the ideal that, on constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, citizens and above all officials justify their positions with political values all reasonable people can share, such as the freedom and equality of citizens, instead of resting them only on their own religious or philosophical doctrine.

### What is Rawls's duty of civility?

The moral duty to explain to one another how the positions we vote for on fundamental questions can be supported by public reasons. Rawls held that it is moral and cannot be enforced by law, and that it applies in the public political forum, the discourse of judges, officials and candidates.

### How polarised is Spain?

CEMOP's fifth National Survey on Political Polarisation, fielded in May and June 2025, found 70.1% of Spaniards saying tension had grown in the past year. On a 0 to 10 sympathy scale, PSOE averaged 3.9, PP 3.6, Sumar 3.2 and Vox 2.6.

### How could the Spanish Congress apply public reason?

By building reasons into procedure on the questions Rawls had in mind: reports on organic laws that explain each accepted or rejected amendment and include a minority view, written government replies to committee reports within two months, and a monthly control session where questions on basic rights and the rules of the game are filed and answered with written reasons.

## Sources

- [Public Reason](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/public-reason/), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2022)
- [V Encuesta Nacional de Polarización Política: distribuciones marginales](https://www.cemopmurcia.es/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Marginales.pdf), CEMOP, Universidad de Murcia (2025)
- [Reglamento del Congreso de los Diputados](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1982-5196), BOE (1982)
- [GOBT § 66 Berichterstattung (Geschäftsordnung des Deutschen Bundestages)](https://lexmea.de/de/gesetz/gobt/66), LexMea (text from gesetze-im-internet.de) (2025)
- [Government response to select committee report: procedure notes](https://api.parliament.uk/procedure-browser/steps/6u7kECCG/notes), UK Parliament
- [Insultos, gritos de dimisión y llamadas al orden en la última sesión de control del curso en el Congreso](https://www.menorca.info/actualidad/nacional/2025/06/25/2416333/insultos-gritos-dimision-llamadas-orden-ultima-sesion-control-del-curso-congreso.html), Europa Press / Menorca Es Diari (2025)