How many times, throughout my professional practice as a notary, have I said to an exaggeratedly careful testator, one of those who want to leave everything tied up and well tied up, threading one clause after another with multiple sections and reservations: “Make no mistake, “The best will is not the most complex, but the simplest.” And it is indeed like this: a simple will without pretensions to completeness, if the heirs are decent people or the executor a correct guy, will work like clockwork; while, on the other hand, the most far-sighted of wills, if the children are idiots or the executor a profiteer, will cause a stormy succession.
A correct will is necessary, of course, but the essential thing is the people who must interpret and execute it. And this is no exception, because a society functions not because there are laws, but because the average citizen habitually does what he must, even if it is against his will, going to work and working, paying his debts and taxes, and taking care of people. that depend on him or her. Laws are of course necessary to: a) establish a social order and b) to resolve conflicts of interest; But woe to that country that trusts everything to the coercive capacity of its laws! It will not be a country; It will be a concentration camp (a dictatorship) or an Agramante camp.
What is this pedestrian sermon about? Just to draw the reader's attention to a point that I consider crucial: that most of the evils that afflict us collectively are not due to the poor quality of the laws and the obsolescence of institutions, but to the behavior of people who, Due to their position, they manage our collective interests.
Following the aforementioned example of the will: it is not that the Constitution is a theoretical prodigy; the laws, a quintessential condensation of the most refined spirit of justice; the institutions, a paragon of technical perfection, and the regulations, an all-inclusive navigation chart as accurate as it is clear. No, it's not about that, because, even if all these budgets are in place, if a good part of those who are in charge of the institutions and have to apply the rules lack the training and management experience necessary to do so, we are aviators. And if, furthermore, these same bosses are imbued with a spurious “party patriotism” and go about their business thinking only of the conquest or preservation of power, the disaster is served: the State will enter into crisis. While, on the contrary, with well-established institutions and laws without pretensions to perfection, prudent politicians committed to the general interest will form a well-governed society attentive to the well-being of its members.
An example. Dating our Constitution from 1978, someone born the following year, who is 44 years old today, can say: “Almost half a century has passed, and there are many Spaniards who did not vote for it, so it is necessary to reform it to subject it again to the popular sanction.” According to this theory, every few years our entire legal framework should be endorsed. Also the highway code? That an unscrupulous person maintains such nonsense is inevitable; Now, for such an opinion to take hold is something worse: it makes the validity of the laws dependent on constant popular endorsement. Something impossible.
This madness does not always occur, as it is exclusive to those historical moments of profound crisis of community values. A crisis that manifests itself in an exacerbation to the point of paroxysm of individual rights, in a decline in the sense of belonging and loyalty to the community, with the consequent lack of solidarity, and in the contempt and undermining of the general interest. This society is incapable of democratic governance, because it does not respect institutions or comply with laws, whatever they may be. In this case, the problem is not the institutions or the laws. The problem is the people. The “human factor” said Graham Greene.
