Título I. Diligencias previas

RIGHT OF PETITION.

Petitions addressed to public officials or employees of the public administration shall be decided and notified within the time limit of thirty days, counted from the date on which the administrative procedure has concluded.

The administrative organ receiving the petition, upon processing it, shall indicate the steps to be carried out for the formation of the record. Upon completion of the last of them, the proceedings shall be ready for decision for purposes of what is ordered in the preceding paragraph. The administrative organs shall prepare and maintain a list of requirements that private individuals must fulfill in the requests they submit to them.

Petitions filed before the organs of the public administration shall be made before the authority with jurisdiction to hear and decide. When made in writing, the office shall record the day and time of filing.

PRINCIPLES.

Administrative files shall be advanced on its own initiative, shall be formalized in writing, observing the right of defense and ensuring speed, simplicity, and effectiveness of the procedure. Administrative action shall be free of charge.

FORM.

Administrative decisions shall be issued by competent authority, with citation of the legal or regulatory provisions on which they are based. It is prohibited to take as a decision the opinions issued by a technical or legal advisory body.

Decisions shall be notified to the interested parties personally by summoning them for such purpose; or by mail certifying receipt of the writ of notification. To continue the proceedings, it must be reliably established that the interested party or parties were duly notified with express reference to place, manner, day and time.

CLASSES.

Decisions shall be procedural orders and decisions on the merits. The latter shall be reasoned, shall address the merits, and shall be drafted with clarity and precision.

ARCHIVE.

Those files or proceedings in which the administered persons cease to take action for more than six months shall be archived, provided that the administrative organ has exhausted the activity incumbent upon it and has given notification thereof.

REVOCATION ON ITS OWN INITIATIVE.

Before the decisions have been consented to by the interested parties, they may be revoked by the authority that issued them.

A decision shall be deemed consented to when it is not challenged within the time limit.

APPLICATION FOR REVOCATION.

An application for revocation lies against decisions issued by an administrative authority that has a hierarchical superior within the same ministry or decentralized or autonomous entity. It shall be filed within the five days following that of the notification of the decision, in a memorial addressed to the administrative organ that issued it.

ADMISSION.

The authority that issued the appealed decision shall forward the proceedings to the respective ministry or to the superior body of the entity, with a detailed report, within the five days following the filing.

MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION.

Against the decisions issued by the ministries, and against those issued by the superior administrative authorities, individual or collegiate, of the decentralized or autonomous entities, a motion for reconsideration may be filed within the five days following notification. The appeal shall be filed directly before the challenged authority.

This appeal shall not lie against the decisions of the President and Vice President of the Republic nor against the decisions issued in the application for revocation.

STANDING.

The revocation and reconsideration remedies may be filed by whoever was a party to the file or shows an interest therein.

REQUIREMENTS.

In the memorial interposing the revocation and reconsideration remedies, the following requirements shall be required:

I.Authority to whom it is addressed;

II.Name of the appellant and place where notifications will be received;

III.Precise identification of the decision challenged and date of the notification thereof;

IV.Statement of the grounds on which the appeal is based;

V.Terms of the decision that in the appellant's opinion should be issued, in substitution of the challenged one;

VI.Place, date and signature of the appellant or their representative; if they do not know how or are unable to sign, they shall affix the fingerprint of their right thumb or another that they shall specify.

PROCEDURE.

Once the record is before the body that is to hear the revocation or reconsideration appeals, the following hearings shall be granted:

a)To all persons who have expressed their interest in the administrative file and have designated a place to be notified.

b)To the corresponding advisory, technical or legal body, according to the nature of the file. This hearing shall be omitted when the organization of the institution hearing the appeal lacks such a body.

c)To the Attorney General of the Nation.

The aforementioned hearings shall be granted in the order established above.

TIME LIMIT.

The time limit for the hearings referred to in the preceding article shall in each case be five days.

Such time limits are peremptory and non-extendable, giving rise to liability for the public officials of the advisory administrative body and of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, if they are not discharged within the established time limit.

PROCEEDINGS FOR BETTER DECISION.

The authority hearing the appeal has the power to order, before issuing the decision and after the hearings have been held or their time limit has elapsed, the performance of such proceedings as it deems appropriate for a better decision, setting a time limit of ten days for that purpose.

DECISION.

Within fifteen days after the proceedings have concluded, the final decision shall be issued, the authority not being limited to what has been expressly challenged or causes injury to the appellant, but it shall examine in its entirety the lawfulness of the challenged decision, and may revoke, confirm or modify it.

ADMINISTRATIVE SILENCE.

Upon the lapse of thirty days from the date on which the file is ready to be decided, without the ministry or the corresponding authority having issued a decision, the governmental avenue shall be deemed exhausted for the purpose of using the contentious-administrative avenue, and the act or decision that gave rise to the appeal shall be deemed confirmed.

The administered party, if it suits his right, may bring action to obtain the decision of the body that incurred in silence.

SCOPE OF REMEDIES.

The administrative remedies of revocation and reconsideration shall be the only ordinary means of challenge throughout the centralized and decentralized or autonomous public administration. Excepted are those cases in which the challenge to a decision must be heard by a Labor and Social Welfare Tribunal.

Exceptions.

The application of the procedures regulated in the present law, for the substantiation of the Remedies of Reconsideration and Revocation, is excepted in labor matters and in tax matters, the procedures established by the Labor Code and by the Tax Code, respectively, having to be applied.