Organic law

An organic law is a law, or system of laws, that form the foundation of a government, corporation or any other organization's body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state.

In the US

The Organic Laws of the United States of America can be found in Volume One of the United States Code which contains the general and permanent laws of the United States. U.S. Code (2007) defines the organic laws of the United States of America to include the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, the Articles of Confederation of November 15, 1777, the Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, and the Constitution of September 17, 1787.

In France

Under the current Constitution of France, organic laws are a short, fixed list of statutes (in 2005, there were about 30 of them), whose existence is provisioned by the text of the Constitution itself. According to the framing of the French Constitution (especially its preambles), they are of constitutional scope and have constitutional force and so overrule ordinary statutes. They are enacted by the Parliament of France in the same way except that the Constitutional Council of France must be consulted before any organic law is enacted.

Organic Law (Spain)

An Organic Law (Spanish: Ley Orgánica) in Spanish law under the present Spanish Constitution of 1978 must be passed by an absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies (not merely a majority of those voting). The Spanish Constitution specifies that some areas of law should be regulated by this procedure, such as the Laws of Development of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms contained in the first section of Chapter Two of Title I of the Constitution, which was the basis for the Statutes of Autonomy of the various autonomous communities of Spain. Prior to the 1978 constitution this concept had no precedent in Spain, but was inspired by a similar concept in the current French Constitution of 1958, which established the French Fifth Republic.

Juridically, organic laws are at the same level as ordinary laws. The difference between the two is in the more restrictive process for creating organic laws and in the matters that they regulate.

Definition and application

Article 81.1 of the Spanish Constitution says: "Organic laws are those related to the development of fundamental rights and public liberties, those that approve Statutes of Autonomy and the general electoral regime, and others foreseen in the Constitution."