Sánchez flouts the law: his cabinet voted on two decree-laws without having drafted them

A lack of scruples when it comes to violating the law has become a common practice of Pedro Sánchez's government.

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The latest instance occurred just this Tuesday, September 29. The Council of Ministers approved two royal decree-laws regarding housing—or at least, that is what the official La Moncloa Palace website stated. By midday, the Minister of Housing, Socialist Isabel Rodríguez García, was unable to explain the decrees, admitting to journalists that she did not have the latest version of the texts with her. The government's parliamentary partners were growing impatient at not receiving the fine print of the agreement. By 10:00 PM, Antena 3 reported: "The Government has not yet drafted the approved housing decrees, and its partners are waiting to receive them."

We are witnessing yet another irregularity by a government that displays an odious habit of flouting the law. In this case, Article 26 of Law 50/1997 on the Government sets out the procedure for approving a royal decree-law:

1. Its drafting shall be preceded by whatever studies and consultations are deemed appropriate to ensure the soundness and legality of the regulation.

2. A public consultation shall be conducted via the competent department’s website prior to the drafting of the text, seeking the views of parties potentially affected by the future regulation and of the most representative organizations regarding:

a) The problems intended to be resolved by the new regulation.

b) The necessity and timeliness of its adoption.

c) The objectives of the regulation.

d) Possible alternative regulatory and non-regulatory solutions.

The law itself stipulates that the government may forgo the public consultation process in a series of cases—cases that, in reality, leave the decision to skip this step entirely to its own discretion, effectively turning it into an exception rather than the norm.

Furthermore, the law requires the competent administrative body to prepare a mandatory "Regulatory Impact Analysis Report" assessing, among other things, the "appropriateness of the proposal and the regulatory alternatives considered, a justification for the need for the new rule versus the alternative of adopting no regulation at all," and a legal analysis "referencing national and European Union law, which must include a detailed list of the regulations to be repealed as a result of the new rule’s entry into force."

The law also states that "when the rule affects the rights and legitimate interests of individuals, the competent administrative body shall publish the text on the relevant website in order to give affected citizens a hearing and to gather any additional input from other persons or entities." This is another requirement that the two decrees approved yesterday failed to meet.

However, what interests us regarding yesterday's events appears in point 8 of the aforementioned article: "Once the preceding formalities have been completed, the proposal shall be submitted to the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries and forwarded to the Council of Ministers for approval."

What we witnessed yesterday was a display of improvisation and a lack of respect for the law: a royal decree-law was hastily drafted to appease the far-left—without consulting the affected groups and bypassing the government's legal obligations—only for the government to claim that the Council of Ministers had approved the two decrees, when in reality, it had approved two measures that had not even been written yet. This is a very serious matter, given that the texts approved by the Council of Ministers are the ones that must be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). This is as irregular as voting on a law in Congress and subsequently altering its content without the deputies having the opportunity to evaluate the changes.

Sánchez's government has grown accustomed to treating existing laws as if compliance were optional, as if the rules established to prevent abuses of power were merely hindrances that the government could bypass whenever they became too inconvenient. This constitutes an assault on the rule of law—and all to approve two measures that the government privately admits will solve nothing, even in the short or medium term, given that Spain's housing problem stems primarily from a lack of supply caused by the countless bureaucratic obstacles hindering construction.

A situation brought about by the government itself, which has created a stifling regulatory environment that prevents a response to the high demand for housing, while also failing to meet the obligation placed on public authorities by Article 47 of the Constitution: to regulate "land use in accordance with the general interest to prevent speculation."

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Photo: La Moncloa. The Council of Ministers press conference on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, during which Pedro Sánchez's government announced the approval of two royal decree-laws that had not even been drafted.