Capítulo VIII. Resolucion de conflictos y sanciones

The claims that employers or insured persons formulate by reason of the application of this law or its regulations must be processed and resolved by the Management within the shortest possible time limit. Against what the latter decides, an appeal lies before the Board of Directors, provided that it is filed before the Management within the three days following the respective notice, plus the term of the distance. The pronouncement of the Board must be issued within the ten days following that on which the appeal was formulated.

Only before the labor and social welfare courts may the decisions of the Board of Directors be discussed, and for the respective claims to be admissible, they must be presented within the five working days following that on which the pronouncement of the Institute became final.

The proceedings that are followed for the imposition of fines or sanctions must be initiated and resolved definitively before and by the labor and social welfare courts.

In those proceedings the Institute must always be considered a party.

The proceedings to which the collection of credits originating from investments or of sums owed to the Institute for another reason gives rise must be processed before ordinary civil courts or before the special bodies that correspond, according to the case.

The proceedings to which the imposition of penalties provided by the Penal Code gives rise must be processed before the ordinary courts.

All the juridical acts, applications and proceedings of any kind that are processed before the Institute or before the labor and social welfare courts by reason of the application of this law or its regulations are exempt from the stamped paper and stamp taxes.

Excepted from the provisions of the preceding paragraph is every juridical act, application or proceeding relating to investments, that is processed before the Institute.

The regulations must specify which infractions of these or of the present law have a punishable character and the exact ordinary sanction that corresponds in each case taking into account the nature of the various classes of risks and to the other technical needs of the Institute, all in accordance with the following rules:

a). The penalties consist of fines, which are convertible into arrest in case of non-payment in due time, in the proportion that the courts indicate;

b). The maximum and minimum limits of each ordinary penalty must be fixed between one and five hundred quetzales, in accordance with the seriousness of the infraction; and,

c). Every recidivism must give rise to a duplication of the penalty previously imposed, even if the new sanction exceeds the maximum limit established for the ordinary penalty.

There is recidivism when this law or any of its regulations is infringed for the second time, even if the provision previously violated is different from the one that gave origin to the new sanction.

The penalties to which the preceding article refers must be imposed both on the person directly responsible for the infraction, and on the employer in whose enterprise the violation has been committed, unless the latter demonstrates his ignorance of the fact or his non-participation in the same.

If the employer is a legal person, the penalties must be applied to whoever appears as the principal manager of its businesses or activities, or as its legal representative; but in every case, the said legal person remains jointly obliged together with its representatives, to cover the economic liabilities that may apply.