The Arbitration Panel of the Basque Country has ruled on the jurisdiction issues raised by Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa Provincial Councils, as well as by the Araba General Assemblies, regarding the “Bill on the Internal Institutional Organisation of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country“, introduced by the Basque Socialist Party (PSE) and which the Basque Parliament considered on 12 November 2015 and which was published in the Basque Parliament Gazette on 27 November 2015.
As is concluded in the attached document analysing the Decision, prepared by Jose Luis Etxeberria Monasterio, Chief Counsel of Bizkaia Provincial Council, and María Barrena, a lawyer from the same institution, the Arbitration Panel, with the dissenting vote of its Chairman – who is, in turn, the Chairman of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country -, essentially found for the jurisdiction issues brought by the Provincial Councils of the three provinces regarding the Bill and declared that an important number of its articles are not in keeping with the distribution of powers between the institutions of the Autonomous Community and the provinces.
