Author(s)

José J. Jiménez Sánchez

Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain.

These pages reflect on the connection, at first sight evident, between the democratic principle and the right to decide. However, this work highlights some of the contradictions in which certain of its supporters fall and it defends. On the contrary, the need to establish that the relationship between the principle of the rule of law and the democratic principle cannot give either preeminence over the other. The reason lies in that the democratic principle cannot be understood as the mere sum of particular wills of a specific community, but rather as an expression of the conditions that ensure the formation of a rational political will. The democratic principle can only be understood from a normative, and not factual, conception of sovereign power.

Democracy, Right to Decide, Sovereign Power

Sánchez, J. (2014) Democratic Principle and the Right to Decide: The Case of Catalan Secession. Open Access Library Journal, 1, 1-9. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1100860.