El acercamiento de la Administración al ciudadano: nuevos canales de participación tras la Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común de las Administraciones Públicas

Abstract

Introduction This work is about the novelties that suppose the approval of Law 39/2015 in the participation of the citizens in the elaboration of normative projects. The two laws approved in parallel, Law 39/2015, of 1st October, of the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations, and Law 40/2015, of 1st October, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector, will be the basis of spanish administrative law over the next few years. Both laws collect what will be the ways of relationship between administrations and citizens, which are, and will be increasingly, direct electronic relations. The economic crisis and the rise of social movements have led to an increment in the perception of politics as a main influence on daily life. In recent years, this participation of citizens has been directed towards the demand of citizens with greater involvement in public life, and an ever more direct participation in politics and in the elaboration of norms, in the face of the crisis of trust with politicians, political parties and traditional political representation. The direct participation, through electronic media, in the elaboration of normative projects, can be a way of channeling that social demand of direct democracy. Law 39/2015, in Title VI, which deals with the legislative initiative and legislative power of the Public Administrations, includes among other novelties, the mechanisms to increase citizen participation in the procedure of normative elaboration. The importance given by the Administration to this, is already reflected in the preamble of the Law, which emphasizes "... the need to collect, before the drafting of the norm, the opinion of citizens and companies about the problems that are intended to solve with the initiative, the need and opportunity for its approval, the objectives of the norm and possible alternative regulatory and non-regulatory solutions". The purpose of this work will be the examination of what are those mechanisms to increase citizen participation that we find in the current legal framework after the entry into force of Law 39/2015 and Law 40/2015.These laws also imply a new wording of article 26 of Law 50/1997, of November 27, of the Government. 48 The students of Public Administration, although throughout our career acquired extensive knowledge in administrative law, we are not strictly jurists, therefore we try to use in this work a multidisciplinary approach that reflects the different competences acquired in the career, making an analysis of the management, from the point of view of both the citizen and the Administration. To this end, a general analysis of the legal situation has been combined with a practical approach on the electronic portals of citizen participation in the drafting of normative projects of the General State Administration.