Bilbao coordinated work on the Francoist repressive legislation, with its cornerstones Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas (1939), Ley de Represión de la Masonería y Communismo (1940) and Ley de Seguridad del Estado (1941). He developed appropriate juridical organization, e.g. setting up . As minister he contributed to legal groundwork for the so-called , for Patronato Central de Redención de Penas por el Trabajo, with some 10,5 thousand children covered in 1943, and for Patronato de Protección a la Mujer. Under his guidance the divorce and marriage legislation of the Republic was retroactively reversed. Though extremely repressive, unlike the Soviet system the Francoist machinery under Bilbao recognized limits and normally respected its own rules.