ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at issues of relevance to the rule of law and questions relating to justice and defence. It begins by examining the guarantor of Spanish justice, the country’s legal system. The following sections consider first the armed forces and how their role has developed in recent decades, and then the institutions charged with combating threats to the rule of law: the various police forces and the prison service. The last section considers the delicate relationship between protecting Spanish society from the effects of crime and preserving civil liberties.
