State of alarm, pandemic and fundamental rights. Limitation or suspension?

In Spain, the Constitution provides for the possibility of limiting or suspending some fundamental rights recognized in the Constitution in certain emergency situations. This Exception Law provides for the declaration of three different situations: state of alarm, state of exception and state of siege. According to the traditional thesis, based on article 55 of the Spanish Constitution, in the state of emergency and in the state of siege the suspension of fundamental rights is possible, while in the state of alarm it is only possible to limit them. The difference would be that the suspension implies the restriction of the essential content of these rights. Based on the experience of the three states of alarm declared in Spain in 2020 to face the Covid-19 pandemic, and the case-law of the Constitutional Court, especially CCJ 148/2021, of July 14, in this paper a critical interpretation of this traditional thesis is made and it is argued about the difficulty of distinguishing limitation and suspension of rights. The main thesis that is maintained in this paper is that no suspension of fundamental rights really occur, since they do not disappear, not even temporarily. There is only a reduction or redefinition of its essential content. But, in any case, the guarantees of fundamental rights established in the Constitution and in the Organic Law 4/1981, of June 1, on the states of alarm, exception and siege survive. The difference between the state of alarm and the states of exception and siege must be located in the factual assumptions that legitimize the declaration of each of them, in the procedure provided for this declaration and in the specific rights that may be directly limited in each case, as well as in the specific measures that this limitation may consist of. These measures are clearly defined in the Organic Law 4/1981.