Spanish government departments

The ministers are appointed and dismissed by the Monarch at the proposal of the President of the Government.[1]

Both appointment and dismissal, to be effective, must to be published at the Official State Gazette, although exists some specific cases, previous to the approval of the 1997 Government Act, which dismissal was not published. Those cases are Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, minister without portfolio between 1976 and 1977 and Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, Minister of Justice from 1980 to 1981.[2]

Unlike the portfolio ministers, the dismissal of ministers without portfolio entails the extinction of all the ministerial structure that supports it.

According to the Government Act, the ministers, as heads of their departments, have competence and responsibility in the specific sphere of their actions, and they are responsible for exercising the following functions:[1]

• To develop the action of the Government within the scope of its department, in accordance with the agreements adopted in the Council of Ministers or with the orders of the Prime Minister.
• To exercise the regulatory power in the matters specific to his department.
• To exercise the powers attributed to them by laws, the rules of organization and functioning of the Government and any other norm.
• To countersign, when necessary, the acts of the Sovereign in the sphere of its responsibilities.

The ministers, as members of the Government, meet in the following collective bodies:

• The Council of Ministers.
• The Government Delegated Committees.

The substitution of the ministers must be determined by a Royal Decree of the Prime Minister, and always has to fall on another member of the Government. The Royal Decree must express the cause and character of the substitution.[1]

The only substitution that has taken place since the entry into force of the 1997 Government Act has been that of the Minister of Defense in May 2008. Minister Carme Chacón used her right to maternity leave and her responsibilities were temporary assumed by the Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba.[3]

These have been the ministers without portfolio that have existed since the transition to democracy:[2]

Before of the approval of the 1997 Government Act, the Ministries and Secretariats of State had to be created by law, normally by a direct law passed by the Government in the form of Royal Decree-Law. After, the Government Act allowed the Prime Minister to approve a Royal Decree  (secondary legislation) designing the government structure.

Currently, the Prime Minister only creates the Ministries and some of the highest bodies (like secretariats of State and Undersecretariats) while the principal internal organization is delegated into the ministers, which develop the structure of the bodies created by the Premier or create new ones. The order of the Minister is also a royal decree signed the Monarch and countersigned by the minister responsible for the public administration at the proposal of the competent minister.

The lowest bodies such as deputy directorates-general are created by a Ministerial Order (ranked below the royal decree) of the competent minister.[6]

The ministers are the superior heads of the department and direct hierarchical superiors of the secretaries of State. The executive bodies depend on the previous ones and they are hierarchically ordered among themselves in the following way: undersecretary, director general and deputy director general. The general secretaries have the rank of undersecretary and the technical general secretaries have the rank of director general.

Ministerial hierarchy:[6]

• Minister.
  • Secretaries of State.
    • Undersecretaries and General Secretaries.
      • Directors general and technical general secretaries.
        • Deputy directors general.