Statute of Autonomy
Nominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation. This legislative corpus concedes autonomy to a subnational unit, and the articles usually mimic the form of a constitution, establishing the organization of the autonomous government, the electoral rules, the distribution of competences between different levels of governance and other regional-specific provisions, like the protection of cultural or lingual realities.
In Spain, the process of devolution after the transition to democracy created 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities, each having its own Statute of Autonomy. On 18 June 2006, Catalonia approved in referendum a new but controversial Catalan Statute of Autonomy, enhancing the degree of autonomy of this Spanish territory. The original such statute was granted by the Spanish Republic in 1932.
