← Environmental Law Center← Centro de Derecho Ambiental
Res. 00023-2020 Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo Sección V · Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo Sección V · 2020
OutcomeResultado
The Tribunal partially granted the lawsuit: it found the dismissal agreement non-conforming with the legal system for being issued after the one-month prescription term, but rejected the request for nullity, upholding the dismissal.El Tribunal declaró parcialmente con lugar la demanda: reconoció la disconformidad del acuerdo de despido con el ordenamiento jurídico por haberse dictado fuera del plazo de prescripción de un mes, pero rechazó su nulidad, manteniendo la validez del despido.
SummaryResumen
This ruling by the Fifth Section of the Administrative Contentious Tribunal decides a full-jurisdiction lawsuit against the State, filed by a dismissed teacher. The plaintiff argued solely that the disciplinary power had prescribed, since the Executive Branch agreement formalizing his dismissal was issued 48 days after the Civil Service Tribunal's decision became final, exceeding the one-month term he argued was applicable via integration of Article 414 of the Labor Code. The Tribunal conducts an extensive analysis of prescription terms in public-sector disciplinary procedures when special legislation is silent. It concludes that, given the Civil Service Statute's gap regarding prescription for general procedural stages, the legal system must be integrated by applying the one-month term of the Labor Code. It confirms the term was indeed violated, declaring the act non-conforming with the legal system. Nevertheless, it rejects the claim to annul the dismissal, based on the principle of conservation of administrative acts (Article 329.3 of the General Public Administration Act), the plaintiff's procedural conduct (failure to present a defense in the administrative process and to challenge the substantive grounds for dismissal, only attacking the Executive's agreement), and the composite nature of the dismissal act, where the grounds were analyzed by an independent technical body whose decision was not substantively challenged. The disciplinary power is thus maintained.Esta sentencia del Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo Sección V resuelve un proceso de conocimiento contra el Estado, interpuesto por un docente despedido. El actor alegaba únicamente la prescripción de la potestad disciplinaria, pues el acuerdo del Poder Ejecutivo que formalizó su despido fue emitido 48 días después de la firmeza de la decisión del Tribunal de Servicio Civil, excediendo el plazo de un mes que, según su criterio, es aplicable por integración del artículo 414 del Código de Trabajo. El Tribunal realiza un extenso análisis sobre los plazos de prescripción en los procedimientos disciplinarios del sector público cuando la normativa especial es omisa. Concluye que, ante el vacío del Estatuto de Servicio Civil en cuanto a prescripción para las etapas generales del procedimiento, debe integrarse el ordenamiento aplicando el mes del Código de Trabajo. Constata que, en efecto, se vulneró ese plazo, declarando el acto disconforme con el ordenamiento jurídico. Sin embargo, rechaza la pretensión de nulidad del despido, basándose en el principio de conservación de los actos administrativos (artículo 329.3 de la Ley General de la Administración Pública), en la conducta procesal del actor (quien no ejerció su defensa en sede administrativa ni atacó el fondo del despido, solo el acuerdo del Ejecutivo), y en la naturaleza compuesta del acto de despido, donde el análisis de las causales lo realizó un órgano técnico independiente cuyo fallo no fue cuestionado de forma. Se mantiene así la potestad disciplinaria.
Key excerptExtracto clave
In the present case, the one-month prescription term established in Article 414 of the Labor Code was indeed violated, applicable by integration given the special law's omission to provide for it. The plaintiff is therefore correct in requesting that this act be declared non-conforming with the legal system, insofar as it was issued after the specified deadline. [...] Although the indicated act does not conform with the legal system, it is necessary to analyze the plaintiff's separate claim to have it declared null and void. In this jurisdiction, the principle that there is no nullity for nullity's sake has been insisted upon and maintained for many years, derived from the principle of conservation of acts [...] Article 329, section three of the General Public Administration Act would also be applicable, determining that a final act issued outside the deadline shall be valid for all legal purposes, unless otherwise provided by law—which is not the case here. [...] Therefore, for all the foregoing reasons, this Tribunal considers that disciplinary power is maintained in this instance and the declaration of nullity of Executive Agreement No. 6-2017-AC is not appropriate.En la especie si se vulneró el término de un mes de prescripción establecido en el artículo 414 del Código de Trabajo, aplicable por integración ante la omisión de la norma especial en disponerlo. Con lo cual llevaría razón la parte actora cuando en sus pretensiones solicita sea declarado dicho acto disconforme con el ordenamiento jurídico, en el tanto, el mismo fue dictado fuera de plazo indicado. [...] Si bien existe disconformidad del acto indicado con el ordenamiento jurídico, es necesario analizar la pretensión separada del actor de declarar la nulidad del mismo. En esta jurisdicción se ha insistido y mantenido desde hace muchos años el principio de la no existencia de la nulidad por la nulidad misma, ello derivado del principio de conservación de los actos [...] sería además aplicable el numeral 329 acápite tercero de la Ley General de la Administración Pública, en el cual se determina que el acto final recaído fuera de plazo será válido para todo efecto legal, salvo disposición en contrario de la ley, que en el caso concreto no se da. [...] Así las cosas, por todo lo expuesto, este Tribunal considera que se mantiene en la especie la potestad disciplinaria y no procede la declaración de nulidad del acuerdo N° 6-2017-AC del Poder Ejecutivo.
Pull quotesCitas destacadas
"El mes estipulado en el artículo 603 citado comenzará a correr a partir de que el órgano encargado de tomar la decisión esté en posición de adoptarla, es decir, una vez que es impuesto de la conclusión final de la investigación."
"The one-month period stipulated in cited Article 603 shall begin to run from the moment the body responsible for taking the decision is in a position to adopt it, that is, once it is informed of the final conclusion of the investigation."
Considerando V
"El mes estipulado en el artículo 603 citado comenzará a correr a partir de que el órgano encargado de tomar la decisión esté en posición de adoptarla, es decir, una vez que es impuesto de la conclusión final de la investigación."
Considerando V
"Ante omisión de la norma administrativa, el término de prescripción general establecido en la norma laboral privada, sea el actual numeral 414 [...] del Código de Trabajo, el cual establece como límite máximo de un mes."
"In the absence of an administrative norm, the general prescription term established in the private labor norm—current Article 414 of the Labor Code—setting a maximum limit of one month, shall apply."
Considerando V
"Ante omisión de la norma administrativa, el término de prescripción general establecido en la norma laboral privada, sea el actual numeral 414 [...] del Código de Trabajo, el cual establece como límite máximo de un mes."
Considerando V
"Si bien existe disconformidad del acto indicado con el ordenamiento jurídico, es necesario analizar la pretensión separada del actor de declarar la nulidad del mismo. [...] El numeral 329 acápite tercero de la Ley General de la Administración Pública [...] determina que el acto final recaído fuera de plazo será válido para todo efecto legal, salvo disposición en contrario de la ley."
"Although the indicated act does not conform with the legal system, it is necessary to analyze the plaintiff's separate claim to have it declared null and void. [...] Article 329, section three of the General Public Administration Act [...] determines that a final act issued outside the deadline shall be valid for all legal purposes, unless otherwise provided by law."
Considerando VI.c
"Si bien existe disconformidad del acto indicado con el ordenamiento jurídico, es necesario analizar la pretensión separada del actor de declarar la nulidad del mismo. [...] El numeral 329 acápite tercero de la Ley General de la Administración Pública [...] determina que el acto final recaído fuera de plazo será válido para todo efecto legal, salvo disposición en contrario de la ley."
Considerando VI.c
Full documentDocumento completo
V.- Regarding the applicable statute of limitations periods in disciplinary procedures of the public sector.
Without yet entering into the analysis of the merits of the case before us, this Chamber must refer to the limitation periods that must be applicable in a disciplinary procedure, considering that around this aspect, there has been a gap in the regulations, which has generated a series of analyses and diverse applications leading to several criteria on the matter. In that sense, it must be assumed that the legal institution of the statute of limitations (prescripción) determines a "penalty" for inertia in due action without a proper, adequate, and valid justification (interruption factors). In the disciplinary matters of the administration, due to the purpose it entails and because its sanctions could affect the principles of stability and permanence in office (inamovilidad) inherent to public employment, it is of utmost importance that the authorities in charge of these procedures are very clear on the applicable limitation periods, which, at a first stage of legal reasoning, will derive from the special regulations applicable to each case. For it is no secret that, in the matter of public employment, there is a diversity of regulations, from the general one of the Civil Service Statute (Estatuto del Servicio Civil), which in principle would develop the constitutional provision contained in numeral 191 of the Magna Carta, with the idea of a single norm for the entire public sector. However, the truth is that the Statute remained applicable only to officials of the central administration, and this led to a profuse development of a considerable amount of special regulations for the state sector itself, but according to different needs and interests, which resulted in the relations between the State and its servants having a diversity of regulations at their disposal. The problem that has arisen is not when there is a special norm, as that will be the one inevitably applied. The issue arises in cases where such regulations are silent regarding the terms and scope of the applicable statute of limitations. In this latter sense, the Second Chamber (Sala Segunda) of the Supreme Court of Justice (Corte Suprema de Justicia), in judgment 515 at nine hours fifty minutes on June thirteenth, two thousand twelve, made a very interesting analysis regarding the application, even in the administrative sanctioning procedure, of the one-month term provided in the former numeral 603 of the Labor Code (Código de Trabajo). It stated: "Title Ten of the Labor Code expressly regulates the various statutes of limitations that may operate in relation to rights derived from an employment contract, regardless of whether these belong to the private or public sector. Regarding the statute of limitations on the employer's power to discipline its workers for committed offenses, the norm of numeral 603 of said Code states: 'The rights and actions of employers to justifiably dismiss workers or to discipline their offenses prescribe in one month, which shall begin to run from the moment the cause for separation arose or, as the case may be, from the moment the facts giving rise to the disciplinary correction were known.' Both scenarios '…from the moment the cause for separation arose or, as the case may be, from the moment the facts giving rise to the disciplinary correction were known,' although differentiated, presuppose the necessary knowledge that the employer or its representatives must have of the offense and its possible authors, given that the statute of limitations has a clear foundation: to penalize the inertia of the holder of a right who does not exercise its faculties. Therefore, an employer who is unaware of the commission of an anomalous act, or the identity of those responsible, cannot be penalized with the statute of limitations, since it is evident that any sanction has a center of subjective imputation, which would not exist as long as that identification is lacking. The starting point of the statute of limitations is, therefore, the moment when knowledge of the facts and their possible responsible parties is obtained. This rule prevails in both the public and private sectors. However, in the public sector, it must be tempered because the administration is obligated, prior to imposing the sanction, to respect the administrative due process (debido proceso administrativo). Due process in this venue is not only a guarantee for the worker; it also allows the employer entity to achieve greater certainty regarding the factual basis of its decision: the real truth. That is why it has been said that, in the case of public entities, whose disciplinary exercise is conditioned on the prior fulfillment of due process, the knowledge that the employer entity may have of the commission of the act, or even more so, its alleged authorship, is not sufficient. The employer entity must previously exhaust the administrative adversarial proceedings, and only then can the employer hierarchy issue the respective act. For that reason, it has been repeatedly resolved that in such cases, the one month stipulated in Article 603 cited will begin to run from the moment the body responsible for making the decision is in a position to adopt it, that is, once it has been informed of the final conclusion of the investigation. However, the obligation to exhaust the guarantee of administrative due process does not give rise to an interpretation that the administration may disregard the prescriptive period to which it is subject as an employer. The defense of statute of limitations constitutes a right that protects workers. Without a doubt, the period provided by the aforementioned norm—which applies generally in both the public and private sectors, except for exceptional cases contemplated in special norms—is short. This brevity evidences the legislator's interest in preventing workers from being embroiled in prolonged periods of uncertainty regarding the sanction for offenses they may have committed, a situation that is not at all convenient for someone who depends on their job. For this reason, public entities that have the obligation to exhaust an administrative procedure prior to the imposition of a disciplinary sanction are obligated to act diligently once they have knowledge of the offense and have identified, at least preliminarily, those responsible. The appellant rightly warns that it is impossible to apply any statute of limitations during the stage in which it is being summarily investigated whether the anomalous act existed, or the possible culprits are identified. However, from the moment that information is available, the employer entity is obliged to initiate due process. The consequences of abandoning that faculty from that moment onward are exclusively the employer's responsibility. Regarding this topic, it has been said: 'the administrative procedure must begin within one month from the moment knowledge of the facts is obtained. Then, once the investigation has begun, if it is unjustifiably paralyzed for more than one month, the statute of limitations is triggered. The same occurs if, once the investigation is concluded and the dossier is prepared by the instructing body, the decision-maker does not adopt the final act within the month following the moment they are in a position to do so (see our ruling No. 938-05 in this regard). It is important to bear in mind that the employer's knowledge of the irregularity that triggers the computation of the statute of limitations is that which is qualified, that is, not superficial or generic, a mere rumor or general comment, but rather it must be precise, exact, and certain, particularly when the type of offense is unclear and requires a preliminary investigation or an audit study to determine whether there is sufficient merit to open a disciplinary case (see judgments No. 450-05 and 725-07 from this office on this topic). In such a scenario, while the audit reports are being prepared, it is clear that the limitation period does not begin to run; rather, it begins to run from the moment the result of the prior investigation is brought to the attention of the competent body to sanction (see rulings No. 334-99, 721-04, and 386-06 of this Chamber in this regard). Obviously, that preliminary stage must have a reasonable duration, as was pointed out in our vote No. 672-04'. As indicated in this text, taken from a previous vote issued by this Chamber (No. 953-11, at 10:35 a.m. on November 18, 2011), not every comment or rumor triggers the start of the computation of the statute of limitations; it requires certain, reasonably verifiable knowledge, particularly when the type of offense committed is unclear. In Vote No. 672 at 9:30 a.m. on August 18, 2004, it was also pointed out: 'In the specific case, the fact that prior information was gathered before the dismissal proceeding is not sufficient to conclude that the Minister's right to file the dismissal proceeding had prescribed; for, it must be interpreted that the knowledge referred to in the regulations is certain knowledge; that is, that which allows the superior to be certain about the appropriateness of the dismissal proceeding. The information gathered by a body subordinate to the superior, which, as the Constitutional Chamber indicated, has a precautionary nature, can in no way result in the statute of limitations on the right to later file the dismissal proceeding by the one who has the competence to do so.' That is to say, as long as the existence of the act or its authorship is not clear, no prescriptive period runs against the Administration. However, if the conclusion reached in the prior investigation results in the identification of the possible perpetrators of the act, from that moment on, the Administration is subject to the period either to appoint the directing body of the procedure or to issue the order for the initiation and notification of charges (auto de apertura y traslado de cargos)." Therefore, proceeding from the basis that Article 9 of the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) establishes: "1. The administrative legal system is independent of other branches of law. Only in the case where no applicable administrative norm exists, written or unwritten, shall private law and its principles be applied. 2. In case of integration, due to a gap in the written administrative system, the following shall be applied, in order: jurisprudence, general principles of public law, custom, and private law and its principles.", and for the sake of integrating the legal system and resolving possible gaps regarding applicable limitation periods, what the Second Chamber has ordered is reasonable, establishing that precisely in the absence of an administrative norm, the general limitation period established in the private labor norm, currently numeral 414 (formerly 603) of the Labor Code, which establishes a maximum limit of one month for the employer to sanction its employees, is applicable, considering the position of power held by this labor party, in addition to legal certainty and protection for the weaker party in the relationship. It is clear, of course, that in public matters, unlike private ones, there is an obligation to apply the principle of due process derived from Article 39 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política), as the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) has indicated since its judgments 15-90 and 1739-92, in which it developed the minimum content of that principle for the purposes of understanding and applying it by the principle of legality (articles 11 of the Political Constitution and General Law of Public Administration) in the actions of the public sector as a guarantee for the individuals subject to, as in the matter at hand, a disciplinary procedure. Now, taking the foregoing into account, and following the same line of what has been developing, it is necessary to distinguish, in administrative disciplinary matters, the stages considered general in the procedure to be followed when one wishes to sanction an official. Hence, the potential need has been established that, once the facts are known (original starting point), they may be subjected to a preliminary investigation for the purpose of clearly determining the valid reasons for which the procedure would be initiated (merit to proceed). If necessary, and once it has been carried out, the administration must decide whether or not to initiate the disciplinary procedure proper, which must be continuous, meaning without unjustified interruptions and always aimed at finding out the truth regarding the facts attributed to the investigated party, for which all steps corresponding to that evidentiary stage may be taken. Finally, once the procedure is concluded with the necessary guarantees, the administration must resolve the matter. It should be noted that regarding the duration of the stages of the preliminary investigation or the investigation itself, taking into account the application of the due process principle, as well as the specific regulations of each entity or body, it will depend on the requirements established, and in any case, if a special norm exists, its deadlines will generally be orderly (ordenatorios) rather than peremptory (perentorios); and in the event of omission, the provisions of the same General Law of Public Administration regarding the development of the ordinary procedure and the reasonableness itself, which will be analyzed for each specific case, would apply. But, what matters, regarding limitation periods, in cases where the administrative regulation is silent, the stages of a general sanctioning procedure that would be subject to the application of the private norm by integration, that is, the one-month statute of limitations, would be, taking as a starting point the commission and/or knowledge of the facts: a) the eventual start of the preliminary investigation, and b) the start of the investigation itself, as well as, from the conclusion of the investigation: c) The making of the final decision. In summary, as has been insisted, for these stages there is not a single applicable limitation period, but rather it will depend on the specialty of the administrative procedure; being that in each of the mentioned stages, the specific limitation period established in each administrative norm applicable to the case will be applicable, and if that norm is silent in establishing the limitation period, by integration and in order to not violate the principles of legal certainty and protection of labor matters, the one-month term provided by Article 414 of the Labor Code will be applicable.
VI.- Regarding the specific case. For the purpose of delimiting the scope of this judgment in the case that has been brought before this jurisdiction, it must be indicated that the representation of Mr. [Name 001] has focused solely on challenging the agreement of the Executive Branch (Poder Ejecutivo) through which the dismissal was finalized, centering its argument only on the application of the one-month statute of limitations which, in its view, entails the loss of the administrative disciplinary power. Having established that aspect, the present analysis will only be limited to precisely determining whether or not the alleged statute of limitations occurred, and from there determining the effects and scope thereof for the specific case and under its circumstances. a) Regarding the stages of the special disciplinary procedure for teachers: Regarding the procedure for sanctioning a teacher, it is special and is regulated by the Civil Service Statute (ESC) and its Regulations. In said regulations, the procedure begins in Article 65 establishing the preliminary investigation, in which the Personnel or Human Resources Department of the Ministry will proceed to verify the information available, ratify the charges made by the complainant, and evacuate evidence, all with the purpose of drawing up a record and thereby determining whether or not to initiate the procedure. In a second step, if there is merit to initiate the procedure, it will be opened by means of the respective notification of charges (traslado de cargos), which must be notified, and ten days were granted for the investigated party to exercise their defense. The corresponding evidence will be evacuated, and the existence or not of a serious offense must be assessed (Article 69 of the ESC). In a third stage, according to the numerals from 70 to 73 of the ESC, if the offense is considered serious, the Personnel Department will proceed to verify the existence of defects in the procedure up to that moment—it will not assess the case on its merits—and will issue an authorization to the Minister to dismiss, a situation that is not binding on the ministerial superior. In a fourth step, according to Article 74 of the ESC, the superior of the education portfolio (Minister) will have one month (expiry period (plazo de caducidad)) to present the proceeding before the Civil Service Tribunal (Tribunal de Servicio Civil), or to apply the commutation (conmutación) established by Article 62 of the same regulation, the latter subject to a prior recommendation from the Civil Service Tribunal. If the matter has been elevated to the aforementioned Tribunal, it has two options: the first, the possibility of ordering more evidence, or staying with what the dossier already contains; in any case, it must resolve the matter, against which an appeal is available within three days and before the Administrative Tribunal of the Civil Service (Tribunal Administrativo de Servicio Civil). Thus, when the matter is resolved without an appeal being filed, or the appeal is resolved, the path will be paved so that, in accordance with the provisions of numeral 140 second paragraph of the Political Constitution, if appropriate according to what was resolved by the aforementioned Tribunal, the Executive Branch may formally order the dismissal. As has been noted, said procedure is complex, and what concerns us is that it does not contemplate limitation periods for the general stages as we had outlined in the preceding Considerando; it only provides an expiry period of one month in one of the steps, and that is the one in which the superior of the Ministry of Education must decide whether to elevate the matter to the knowledge of the Civil Service Tribunal, a technical body that will resolve, providing the support for what corresponds regarding the dismissal proceeding brought before it. It must also be indicated that, regarding the investigation stage, in accordance with numeral 26 of the Teaching Career Regulations (Reglamento de la Carrera Docente), it must be concluded within the orderly period of three months. b) Regarding the applicable limitation period in this matter and the non-conformity with the legal system. According to what was developed in the preceding Considerando, it is now appropriate to analyze what was alleged by the parties regarding the existence or not of the limitation period and whether it is applicable. The defendant party, among its arguments, asserts that the case must be related to the Anti-Corruption Law No. 8422 (Ley contra la Corrupción N° 8422), indicating that in the present case there is an infringement of the duty of probity (articles 3 and 4 of said law), a position that this Tribunal does not share, not only because in the notification of charges (intimación) made to Mr. [Name 001] at the appropriate procedural moment (See folio 105 of the administrative dossier), the administration did not include it within its grounds, an element of utmost importance, as its omission and subsequent allegation would entail a violation of the right of defense. Furthermore, it would be overly broad to understand, as the State's representation seems to do in the majority of cases of this nature, that a violation of the duty of probity would always be latent, which is very vague in that form and, at the same time, an unfair resource for the defense of the State's interests, as they thus refer to the application of Article 71 of the Organic Law of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Ley Orgánica de la Contraloría General de la República) and thereby extend the general statute of limitations period to five years. On the other hand, the plaintiff alludes to the fact that in his case, there was a delay of eighteen days by the Executive Branch in agreeing to his dismissal, beyond the one-month statute of limitations he invokes. Indeed, it has been possible to verify that in the case, after the rejection as untimely of the appeal filed by Mr. [Name 001] against the resolution issued by the Civil Service Tribunal, Resolution No. 16038, which was notified to the Ministry of Public Education on December 6, 2016 (Folio 157 of the administrative dossier), from that moment on, the Executive Branch had one month to issue the agreement reaffirming the servant's dismissal in accordance with what the Civil Service Tribunal had ordered, a situation that did not occur until January 24, 2017, when Agreement No. 6-2017-AC was issued (Image 361 of the digital judicial dossier). Moreover, in light of the Evidence for Better Resolution requested by this Tribunal, it could also verify that said act was actually signed by the Minister of Education, Sonia Marta Mora Escalante, until the following January 27, and by the President of the Republic until January 30, 2017 (Image 352 of the digital judicial dossier), at which point the dismissal had already been executed, having an effective date as of January 28, 2017 (See document running in the unbound part of the administrative dossier issued by the Regional Directorate of Santa Cruz of the Ministry of Public Education). And that, finally, the respective publication, because it is an act of the Executive Branch, was in the official gazette La Gaceta No. 38 of Wednesday, February 22, 2017 (Unbound part of the administrative dossier and Image 343 of the digital judicial dossier). With this, it can indeed be determined that, in this case, the one-month limitation period established in Article 414 of the Labor Code, applicable by integration due to the omission of the special norm to provide for it, was violated. Therefore, the plaintiff would be correct in his claims requesting said act be declared non-conforming with the legal system, insofar as it was issued outside the indicated period. c) About the Nullity of the alleged conduct. Although there is non-conformity of the indicated act with the legal system, it is necessary to analyze the plaintiff's separate claim to declare its nullity. In this jurisdiction, the principle of non-existence of nullity for nullity's sake has been insisted upon and maintained for many years, this deriving from the principle of conservation of acts, and in this matter, numeral 329, third paragraph of the General Law of Public Administration would also be applicable, in which it is determined that the final act issued outside the period shall be valid for all legal effects, save for a provision to the contrary in the law, which in the specific case does not exist, since, as has been indicated, the special regulation did not even expressly determine the statute of limitations, much less regarding the annulment effect of the act. Even reference should be made to the fact that Article 340 of that same General Law indicates that the expiry (caducidad) of the procedure will not proceed when the dossier is ready for the issuance of the final act. And indeed, in the matter under study, one must start from some elements that make the non-annulment of what was acted upon viable. In the first place, in the disciplinary procedure followed against him, after the personal notification made to Mr. [Name 001] of the notification of charges (intimación de hechos) via Resolution No. AJD-RES-565-2015 of the General Directorate of Civil Service (Dirección General de Servicio Civil), at 9:30 a.m. on October 20, 2015 (Folios 105 and 125 of the administrative dossier), the investigated party did not exercise his right of defense, which led to the legal possibility established in numeral 43 of the Civil Service Statute being applied in said procedure, namely, that given the omission of the investigated party, the matter must be immediately referred to the Civil Service Tribunal for it to decide on the merits, which was done via Resolution No. AJD-RES-648-2015 of the Civil Service Directorate at 9:35 a.m. on November 30, 2015 (Folio 126 of the administrative dossier). Thus, the Civil Service Tribunal, in Resolution No. 12568 at 8:20 a.m. on January 20, 2016, ordered declaring With Merit the proceeding promoted by the Minister of Education to dismiss the official [Name 001] (Folio 130 of the administrative dossier). And not only that, but it was not until the notification of that final resolution of the procedure, on which the dismissal of the official was based, that Mr. [Name 001] reacted, filing an appeal, which he did tardily, causing its rejection as untimely (Folio 154 of the administrative dossier). With all of which it can be determined that, having had the opportunity to defend himself in his proper procedural moment, he did not do so, or if he did, it was untimely, and now, in the jurisdictional venue, he not only fails to attack the resolution in which the facts of the dismissal proceeding were technically and substantively analyzed, accepting them as grounds for his separation from the position, since the plaintiff in this lawsuit only bet on challenging the agreement of the Executive Branch due to the statute of limitations. That is, he never jurisdictionally discussed what was acted upon and resolved in the administrative venue, which for this Tribunal is inconsistent, as what is pursued is solely that, due to the expiry of a term, a nullity of an act is achieved without properly attacking the substantive basis, on which, in this case, the official was dismissed, since in the lawsuit before us, no plea was presented regarding the form or merits against the procedure followed, but only against the agreement of the Executive Branch. And, added to the above, it must be considered that the challenged agreement, being about the dismissal of a public servant, takes effect as a result of what is provided in the Political Constitution (Article 140.2), a conduct that in itself does not entail the analysis of the existence or not of the grounds for dismissal; rather, that is reserved by legal provision to the result issued by a technical body that analyzed the case and ordered the appropriateness or not of the dismissal, after a procedure in which due process and the right of defense were respected. Therefore, it cannot be understood that the agreement of the Executive Branch is one of mere execution, but rather it is a composite act, as the final decision comprises both what was decided by the Civil Service Tribunal or the Administrative Tribunal of the Civil Service, as the case may be, in which the legally competent body is the one that establishes the existence of the ground(s) and the legal basis for the dismissal, and which inevitably provides the basis for the other part of the conduct, which is the formal agreement of the Executive Branch provided for by the Fundamental Charter. Indeed, this happened in this case, as can be extracted with great clarity; Agreement No. 6-2017-AC of the Executive Branch (Image 361 of the digital judicial dossier) makes clear reference that it is based on Resolutions 12568 at 8:20 a.m. on January 20, 2016, and that at 7:45 p.m. on November 29, 2016, both from the Civil Service Tribunal, it being in the first-mentioned one precisely where the dismissal of servant [Name 001] was substantively established. Therefore, for all the foregoing reasons, this Tribunal considers that the disciplinary power is maintained in this case and the declaration of nullity of Agreement No. 6-2017-AC of the Executive Branch is not appropriate.
In the disciplinary matter of the administration, due to the purpose it entails, and because its sanctions could affect the principles of stability and immovability inherent to public employment, it is of utmost importance that the authorities in charge of these procedures have very clear the applicable prescription (prescripción) terms, which, in a first stage of legal reasoning, will derive from the special regulations applicable to each case, since it is no secret that, in the matter of public employment, there is a diversity of regulations, from the general one of the Civil Service Statute (Estatuto del Servicio Civil), which initially would develop the constitutional provision contained in numeral 191 of the Magna Carta, with an idea of a single rule for the entire public sector, but the truth is that the Statute only remained in its application for officials of the central administration and this caused a prolific development of a considerable amount of special regulations for the same state sector, but according to different needs and interests, which led to the relations between the State and its servants having a diversity of regulations at their disposal. The problem that has arisen is not when a special rule exists, as that will be the one that is inevitably applied. But rather, in cases where that regulation is silent regarding the terms and scope of the applicable prescription. In this latter sense, the Second Chamber (Sala Segunda) of the Supreme Court of Justice (Corte Suprema de Justicia) in judgment 515 of nine hours fifty minutes, of June thirteenth, two thousand twelve, made a very interesting analysis about the application, even in the sanctioning administrative procedure, of the one-month term provided in the former numeral 603 of the Labor Code (Código de Trabajo), stating: "</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><em>Title Ten of the Labor Code expressly regulates the various prescriptions that may operate in relation to rights derived from an employment contract, regardless of whether these belong to the private or public sector. Regarding the prescription of the employer's power to discipline its workers for committed faults, the rule of numeral 603 of that Code states: 'The rights and actions of employers to justifiably dismiss workers or to discipline their faults prescribe in one month, which shall begin to run from when cause for the separation arose or, as the case may be, from when the facts giving rise to the disciplinary correction were known.' Both scenarios '…from when cause for the separation arose or, as the case may be, from when the facts giving rise to the disciplinary correction were known,' although differentiated, presuppose the necessary knowledge that the employer or its representatives must have of the fault and its possible perpetrators, because prescription has a clear basis: sanctioning the inertia of the holder of a right, who does not exercise their powers. Therefore, an employer who is unaware of the commission of an anomalous act, or the identity of those responsible, cannot be sanctioned with prescription because it is evident that any sanction has a center of subjective imputation, which would not exist as long as that identification does not exist. The starting point of the prescription is therefore the moment when the facts and their possible responsible parties are known. This rule prevails in both the public and private sectors. However, in the public sector, it must be tempered because the administration is obligated, prior to the imposition of the sanction, to respect due process (debido proceso administrativo). Due process in this venue is not only a guarantee for the worker, it also allows the employer entity to achieve greater certainty of what will be the factual basis of its decision: the real truth. That is why it has been said that in the case of public entities, whose disciplinary exercise is conditioned on the prior fulfillment of due process, the knowledge that the employer entity has of the commission of the act, or even more, of its alleged authorship, is not sufficient. The employer entity must first exhaust the administrative adversarial process and only then can the employer hierarchy issue the respective act. For this reason, it has been repeatedly resolved that in such cases, the month stipulated in the cited article 603 shall begin to run from when the body in charge of making the decision is in a position to adopt it, that is, once it is informed of the final conclusion of the investigation. However, the obligation to exhaust the guarantee of due process does not give rise to an interpretation that the administration can disregard the prescriptive period to which it is subject as an employer. The defense of prescription constitutes a right that protects workers. Without a doubt, the period provided by the mentioned rule—which applies generally in both the public and private sectors, except for exceptional cases contemplated in special rules—is short. This brevity highlights the legislator's interest in preventing workers from being embroiled in prolonged periods of uncertainty regarding the sanction for faults they may have committed, a situation that is not at all convenient for someone who depends on their job. For this reason, public entities that have the obligation to exhaust an administrative procedure, prior to the imposition of a disciplinary sanction, are obligated to act diligently once they are aware of the fault and have identified, at least preliminarily, those responsible. The appellant correctly notes that it is impossible to apply any prescription during the stage in which it is being cursorily investigated whether the anomalous act existed or the possible culprits are identified. However, from the moment this information is available, the employer entity is obligated to initiate due process. The consequences of abandoning that power, from that moment on, are the sole and exclusive responsibility of the employer. In relation to this topic, it has been said: 'the administrative procedure must begin within the month from when the facts are known. Then, once the inquiry has begun, if it is unjustifiably paralyzed for more than a month, the prescription occurs. The same occurs if, once the investigation is concluded and the file is prepared by the investigating body, the decision-maker does not adopt the final act within the month following when they are in a position to do so (in this regard, review our ruling no. 938-05). It is important to keep in mind that the employer's knowledge of the irregularity that triggers the start of the prescription calculation is that which is qualified, that is, not superficial or generic, nor mere rumor or general comment, but must be precise, exact, and certain, particularly when the type of fault is unclear and requires a preliminary investigation or an audit study to determine if there is sufficient merit to open a disciplinary case (on this topic, see judgments of this office nos. 450-05 and 725-07). In such a scenario, while the audit reports are being prepared, it is clear that the prescription period does not begin to run, but rather it begins to run from when the result of the prior investigation is brought to the attention of the competent body to sanction (in this sense, read pronouncements nos. 334-99, 721-04, and 386-06 of this Chamber). Obviously, that preliminary stage must have a reasonable duration, as pointed out in our Voto No. 672-04.' As indicated in this text, taken from a previous Voto issued by this Chamber (number 953-11, of 10:35 hours on November 18, 2011), not every comment or rumor triggers the start of the prescription calculation; it requires certain, reasonably verifiable knowledge, particularly when the type of fault committed is unclear. In Voto number 672 of 9:30 hrs. on August 18, 2004, it was also pointed out: 'In the specific case, the fact that prior information was gathered before the dismissal action is not sufficient to conclude that the Minister's right to pursue the dismissal prescribed; because it must be interpreted that the knowledge referred to by the regulation is certain knowledge; that is, one that allows the hierarch to have certainty about the appropriateness of the dismissal action. The information gathered by a body inferior to the hierarch, which as indicated by the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) has a precautionary nature, can in no way result in the prescription of the right to subsequently pursue dismissal by the one who has the competence to do so.' That is, as long as the existence of the fact or its authorship is not clear, no prescriptive period runs for the Administration. However, if from the conclusion agreed upon in the prior investigation, the possible responsible parties for the act are identified, from that point on, the Administration is subject to the period either to appoint the directing body of the procedure or to issue the order for the opening and notification of charges."</em></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Thus, given the situation, starting from the premise that </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">article 9 of the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) establishes: "</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><em>1. The administrative legal order is independent from other branches of law. Only in the case where there is no applicable administrative rule, written or unwritten, shall private law and its principles be applied. 2. In the case of integration, due to a gap in the written administrative order, jurisprudence, the general principles of public law, custom, and private law and its principles shall be applied, in that order.</em></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">", and in the interest of integrating the legal order and resolving possible gaps regarding the applicable prescription terms, what was ordered by the Second Chamber is reasonable, establishing that precisely in the face of omission of the administrative rule, the general prescription term established in the private labor rule, be it the current numeral </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" color=\"#010101\" data-mce-style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\" style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">414 (formerly 603) of the Labor Code, which establishes a maximum limit of one month for the employer to sanction its employees, this in consideration of the position of power held by this labor party, in addition to legal certainty and protection of the weaker party in the relationship. Of course, it must be very clear that in public matters, unlike private ones, there is an obligation to apply the principle of due process derived from article 39 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política), as the Constitutional Chamber has indicated since its judgments 15-90 and 1739-92 in which it developed the minimum content of that principle for the purposes of understanding and applying it by the principle of legality (articles 11 of the Political Constitution and the General Law of Public Administration) in the actions of the public sector as a guarantee for the persons subjected, as in the case at hand, to a disciplinary procedure. Now, taking the foregoing into account, and following the same line of what has been developed, a distinction must be made in administrative disciplinary matters regarding the stages considered as general of the procedure to be followed when wanting to sanction an official. Hence, the potential need has been established that, once the facts are known (original starting point), they may be subjected to a preliminary investigation for the purpose of clearly determining the valid reasons for which the procedure would be initiated (merit to proceed). If necessary and once carried out, the administration must decide whether or not to initiate the disciplinary procedure itself, which must be continuous, understood as without unjustified interruptions and always aimed at ascertaining the truth regarding the facts attributed to the investigated person, for which all proceedings corresponding to that evidentiary stage may be carried out; finally, once the procedure is concluded with the necessary guarantees, the administration must resolve accordingly. It should be noted that regarding the duration of the preliminary investigation stages or the investigation itself, attending to the application of the principle of due process, as well as the specific regulations of each entity or body, it will depend on the requirements established, and that in any case, if a special rule exists, its deadlines will generally be directory (ordenatorios) and not peremptory (perentorios); and in the event of omission, the provisions of the General Law of Public Administration itself regarding the development of the ordinary procedure and the reasonableness itself, which will be analyzed for each specific case, would apply. But, in what is of interest, regarding the terms of prescription, in cases where the administrative regulation is silent, the stages of a general sanctioning procedure that would be subject to the application of the private rule by integration, that is, the one-month prescription, would be, taking as a starting point the commission and/or knowledge of the facts: a) the eventual initiation of the preliminary investigation, and b) the initiation of the investigation itself, as well as upon the completion of the investigation: c) The making of the final decision. In summary, as has been insisted, for these stages there is no single applicable prescription term, but rather it will depend on the specialty of the administrative procedure, it being the case that in each of the mentioned stages, the specific prescription term established in each administrative rule applicable to the case will be applicable, and if that rule is silent in establishing the prescription term, by integration and in order not to violate the principles of legal certainty and the protective principle of labor matters, the one-month term provided by article 414 of the Labor Code will be applicable. </span></span></span></p>\n<p><span idextracto=\"278753\" class=\"example1 278753\" style=\"line-height: 150%;\"><span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong> VI.- Of the specific case.</strong></span> <span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> For the purpose of delimiting the scope of this judgment in the case that has been presented to this jurisdiction, it must be indicated that the representation of Mr. </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> has focused solely on attacking the Executive Branch (Poder Ejecutivo) agreement through which the dismissal was finalized, centering its argument only on the application of the one-month prescription which, in its view, entails the loss of the administrative disciplinary power. Having established that aspect, the present analysis will be limited precisely to determining whether or not the alleged prescription existed, and from there determining its effects and scope for the specific case and under its circumstances. </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" color=\"#010101\" data-mce-style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\" style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>a) </strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong><u>Of the stages of the special sanctioning procedure in matters of teachers</u></strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">: Regarding the sanction procedure for a teacher, it is special and is regulated in </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">the Civil Service Statute (ESC) and its Regulation. In said regulation, the procedure begins in article 65, establishing the preliminary investigation, in which the Ministry's Personnel or Human Resources Department shall proceed to verify the information available, ratify the charges made by the complainant, and evacuate evidence, all for the purpose of drawing up a report and thereby determining whether or not to initiate the procedure. In a second step, if there is merit to initiate the procedure, it will be opened through the respective notification of charges that must be notified, and ten days shall be granted for the investigated person to exercise their defense, the corresponding evidence shall be evacuated, and the existence or not of a serious fault must be evaluated (Article 69 of the ESC). In a third stage, according to numerals 70 through 73 of the ESC, if the fault is considered serious, the Personnel Department shall proceed to verify the existence of defects in the procedure up to that moment—it will not evaluate the case itself—and shall issue an authorization to the Minister to dismiss, a situation that is not binding on the ministerial hierarch. In a fourth step, according to article 74 of the ESC, the hierarch of the education portfolio (Minister) shall have one month (expiration period (plazo de caducidad)) to present the action before the Civil Service Tribunal (Tribunal de Servicio Civil), or to apply the commutation established in article 62 of the same regulation, the latter upon prior recommendation of the Civil Service Tribunal. If the matter has been elevated to the mentioned Tribunal, it has two options: the first, the possibility of ordering more evidence, or keeping what is already in the file; in any case, it must resolve, against which the appeal (recurso de apelación) lies within three days and before the Administrative Tribunal of Civil Service (Tribunal Administrativo de Servicio Civil). Thus, when a resolution is issued without an appeal being filed, or once the appeal is resolved, the path will be enabled so that, in accordance with the provisions of numeral 140, subsection two, of the Political Constitution, if appropriate according to what was resolved by the mentioned Tribunal, the Executive Branch formally orders the dismissal. As can be noticed, said procedure is complex and, in what interests us, does not contemplate prescription terms for the general stages as we had outlined in the preceding whereas clause (considerando), it only provides an expiration period, of one month in one of the steps, and that is the one in which the hierarch of the Ministry of Education must define whether to elevate the matter to the knowledge of the Civil Service Tribunal, a technical body that will resolve, providing the support for what corresponds regarding the dismissal action brought before it. It should also be noted that, regarding the investigation stage, according to numeral 26 of the Regulation of the Teaching Career (Reglamento de la Carrera Docente), it must be concluded within the directory period of three months. </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" color=\"#010101\" data-mce-style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\" style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>b) </strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong><u>Of the prescription term applicable to this matter and non-conformity with the legal order</u></strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">. According to what was developed in the previous whereas clause, it is now appropriate to analyze what was alleged by the parties regarding the existence or not of the prescription term and whether it is applicable. The defendant party, among its arguments, contends that the case must be related to the Law Against Corruption (Ley contra la Corrupción) No. 8422, indicating that there exists in the species an infraction of the duty of probity (articles 3 and 4 of said law), a position this Court does not share, not only because in the formal accusation made against Mr. </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span> <span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> at its procedural moment (See folio 105 of the administrative file), the administration did not include it within its basis, an element of utmost importance, as its omission and subsequent allegation would entail a violation of the right of defense. Furthermore, it would be too broad to understand, as the State's representation seems to do in most cases of this nature, that the violation of the duty of probity would always be latent, which is very imprecise in that way and at the same time an unfair resource for the defense of the State's interests, since they thus refer to the application of article 71 of the Organic Law of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Ley Orgánica de la Contraloría General de la República) and thereby extend the general prescription period to five years. On the other hand, the plaintiff alludes to the fact that, in his case, there was a delay of eighteen days incurred by the Executive Branch in agreeing to his dismissal, beyond the one-month prescription he claims. Indeed, it has been possible to verify that in the species, after the rejection as untimely of the appeal filed by Mr. </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> against the resolution issued by the Civil Service Tribunal, resolution No. 16038 which was notified to the Ministry of Public Education on December 6, 2016 (Folio 157 of the administrative file), with which, and from that moment, the Executive Branch had one month to issue the agreement reaffirming the dismissal of the servant according to what the Civil Service Tribunal had ordered, a situation that did not occur until January 24, 2017, when </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> agreement No. 6-2017-AC was issued (Image 361 of the digital judicial file), it being the case that, given the Evidence for Better Provision (Prueba para mejor proveer) requested by this Court, it could also be noticed that said act was actually signed by the Minister of Education Sonia Marta Mora Escalante until the following January 27 and by the President of the Republic until January 30, 2017 (Image 352 of the digital judicial file), it being the case that by that time the dismissal had already been executed, which was effective as of January 28, 2017 (See document running in the un-paginated part of the administrative file that was issued by the Regional Directorate of Santa Cruz of the Ministry of Public Education). And that, finally, the respective publication, being an act of the Executive Branch, was in the official newspaper La Gaceta No. 38 of Wednesday, February 22, 2017 (Part of the administrative file without pagination and Image 343 of the digital judicial file). With which, it can indeed be determined that, in the species, the one-month prescription term established in article 414 of the Labor Code, applicable by integration given the omission of the special rule in providing for it, was violated. Thus, the plaintiff party would be correct when in its claims it requests that said act be declared non-conforming (disconforme) with the legal order, insofar as it was issued outside the indicated period. </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" color=\"#010101\" data-mce-style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\" style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>c) </strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong><u>Regarding the Nullity of the alleged conduct</u></strong></span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">. Although there is non-conformity of the indicated act with the legal order, it is necessary to analyze the plaintiff's separate claim to declare its nullity. In this jurisdiction, the principle of the non-existence of nullity for nullity's sake has been insisted upon and maintained for many years, derived from the principle of conservation of acts, and in this matter, numeral 329, subsection three, of the General Law of Public Administration would also be applicable, in which it is determined that the final act issued outside the deadline shall be valid for all legal effects, unless otherwise provided by law, which in the specific case does not occur, since as has been indicated, the special regulation did not even establish where it expressly determined the prescription, much less regarding the annulling effect of the act. Indeed, reference must be made that article 340 of that same General Law indicates that the expiration (caducidad) of the procedure shall not proceed when the file is ready for the issuance of the final act. And it is that, in the matter under study, one must start from some elements that make the non-annulment of what was acted upon viable. In the first place, in the disciplinary procedure followed against him, Mr. </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> after the personal notification made to him of the formal accusation of facts by resolution </span></span><span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">No. AJD-RES-565-2015 of the General Directorate of Civil Service (Dirección General de Servicio Civil), of 9:30 hours on October 20, 2015 (Folios 105 and 125 of the administrative file)</span></span><span face=\"Arial\" color=\"#010101\" data-mce-style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\" style=\"color: #010101; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">, the investigated person did not exercise his right of defense,</span></span> <span face=\"Arial\" data-mce-style=\"font-family: Arial;\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> which caused that in said procedure the legal possibility established in numeral 43 of the Civil Service Statute was applied, that is, in the face of the investigated person's omission, the matter must be immediately transferred to the Civil Service Tribunal for it to decide on the merits, which was done by resolution No. AJD-RES-648-2015 of the Directorate of Civil Service of 9:35 hours on November 30, 2015 (Folio 126 administrative file). Thus, the Civil Service Tribunal in resolution No. 12568 of 8:20 hours on January 20, 2016, ordered to declare With Merit (Con Lugar) the action promoted by the Minister of Education to dismiss the official </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> (Folio 130 of the administrative file). And not only that, but it was not until the notification of that final resolution of the procedure, on which the dismissal of the official was based, that Mr. </span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[Name 001]</span> <span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\" data-mce-style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> reacted by filing an appeal, which he did belatedly, causing its rejection as untimely (Folio 154 of the administrative file). With all of which it can be determined that, having had the possibility to defend himself at his procedural opportunity, he did not do so, or if he did, it was belatedly, and now, in a jurisdictional venue, not only does he not attack the resolution in which the facts of the dismissal action were technically and substantively analyzed and accepted as grounds for his separation from the position, since the plaintiff party in this lawsuit only bet on the challenge of the Executive Branch agreement based on prescription, that is, he never jurisdictionally discussed what was acted upon and resolved in the administrative venue, which for this Court is incongruent, as what is pursued is solely that, by the expiration of a term, a nullity of an act is achieved without properly attacking the substantive basis, in which, in this case, the official was dismissed, since in the lawsuit that concerns us, not a single procedural or substantive argument was made against the procedure followed, but only against the agreement of the Executive Branch.
And indeed, in addition to the foregoing, it must be considered that the challenged agreement, in the case of the dismissal of a public servant, occurs as an effect of the provisions of the Political Constitution (Article 140.2), conduct that in itself does not entail the analysis of the existence or not of grounds for dismissal, but rather, that is reserved by legal provision to the result issued by a technical body that analyzed the case and ordered the appropriateness or not of the dismissal, following a prior procedure in which due process (debido proceso) and the right of defense were respected. Therefore, it cannot be understood that the Executive Branch's agreement is one of mere execution; rather, it is a composite act, as the final decision comprises both the decision of the Civil Service Tribunal or the Administrative Tribunal of the Civil Service, as the case may be, in which the legally competent body is the one that establishes the existence of the ground(s) and the legal basis for the dismissal, which inevitably provides the basis for the other part of the conduct, which is the formal agreement of the Executive Branch mandated by the Fundamental Charter. This is precisely what occurred in this case, as can be very clearly extracted: the agreement No. 6-2017-AC of the Executive Branch (Image 361 of the digital judicial file), makes clear reference that it is based on resolutions 12568 of 8:20 a.m. on January 20, 2016, and that of 7:45 p.m. on November 29, 2016, both from the Civil Service Tribunal, the first of which mentioned being precisely where the dismissal of the servant [Name 001] was substantiated. Thus, for all the reasons stated, this Tribunal considers that the disciplinary power is maintained in this instance and a declaration of nullity of agreement No. 6-2017-AC of the Executive Branch does not proceed." V.- On the prescription periods applicable in public sector disciplinary proceedings.
Without yet entering into the analysis of the merits of the matter before us, this Court must refer to the prescription periods that should be applicable in a disciplinary proceeding, considering that, regarding this aspect, a gap has existed in the regulations, which has generated a series of analyses and diverse applications that have resulted in various criteria on the matter. In this sense, we must start from the premise that the legal concept of prescription determines a "punishment" for the inertia in due action without a proper, adequate, and valid justification (interruption factors). In the disciplinary matters of the administration, due to its purpose, and because its sanctions could affect the principles of stability and lifetime tenure (irreductibilidad) inherent to public employment, it is of utmost importance that the authorities in charge of these proceedings have a very clear understanding of the applicable prescription periods. These, in a first stage of legal reasoning, will derive from the special regulations applicable to each case, since it is no secret to anyone that, in matters of public employment, there is a diversity of regulations, starting from the general Civil Service Statute, which in principle would develop the constitutional provision contained in Article 191 of the Magna Carta, with the idea of a single regulation for the entire public sector. The truth is that the Statute only remained applicable to central government employees, and this caused a prolific development of a considerable amount of special regulations for the same state sector, but according to different needs and interests, which led to the relationships between the State and its servants having a diversity of regulations at their disposal. The problem that has arisen is not when a special regulation exists, as that will be the one unfailingly applied; rather, it is in cases where that regulation is silent on the terms and scope of applicable prescription. In this latter sense, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, in ruling 515 of nine hours and fifty minutes, on June thirteenth, two thousand twelve, made a very interesting analysis regarding the application, even in the administrative sanctioning procedure, of the one-month term provided in the former Article 603 of the Labor Code (Código de Trabajo). It stated: "Title Ten of the Labor Code expressly regulates the various prescriptions that may operate in relation to rights derived from an employment contract, regardless of whether these belong to the private or public sector. Regarding the prescription of the employer's power to discipline its workers for committed faults, the rule in Article 603 of that Code states: 'The rights and actions of employers to justifiably dismiss workers or to discipline their faults prescribe in one month, which shall begin to run from when grounds for separation arose or, as applicable, from when the facts that gave rise to the disciplinary correction were known.' Both scenarios '...from when grounds for separation arose or, as applicable, from when the facts that gave rise to the disciplinary correction were known,' although differentiated, involve the necessary knowledge that the employer or its representatives must have of the fault and its possible perpetrators, because prescription has a clear basis: to punish the inertia of the holder of a right, who does not exercise their powers. Therefore, an employer who is unaware of the commission of an anomalous act, or the identity of those responsible, cannot be penalized with prescription, as it is evident that any sanction has a center of subjective imputation, which would not exist as long as that identification does not exist. The starting point of the prescription is, therefore, the moment when knowledge is obtained of the facts and their possible perpetrators. This rule prevails in both the public and private sectors. However, in the public sector, it must be tempered because the administration is obliged, prior to imposing a sanction, to respect administrative due process. Due process in this venue is not only a guarantee for the worker; it also allows the employer entity to achieve greater certainty of what will be the factual basis of its decision: the real truth. Therefore, it has been said that in the case of public entities, whose disciplinary exercise is conditioned on prior compliance with due process, the knowledge that the employer entity has of the commission of the act, or even more, of its alleged authorship, is not sufficient. The employer entity must first exhaust the administrative contradictory proceeding, and only then may the employer's hierarchy issue the respective act. For this reason, it has been repeatedly ruled that in such cases, the one-month period stipulated in the cited Article 603 will begin to run from when the body responsible for making the decision is in a position to adopt it, that is, once it is informed of the final conclusion of the investigation. However, the obligation to exhaust the guarantee of administrative due process does not allow for an interpretation that the administration can disregard the prescriptive period to which it, as an employer, is subject. The defense of prescription constitutes a right that protects workers. Without a doubt, the period provided by the mentioned rule—which applies generally in both the public and private sectors, except in exceptional cases contemplated in special regulations—is short. This brevity shows the legislator's interest in preventing workers from being embroiled in prolonged periods of uncertainty regarding the sanction for faults they may have committed, a situation that is not at all convenient for someone who depends on their job. For this reason, public entities that have the obligation to exhaust an administrative procedure prior to imposing a disciplinary sanction are obliged to act diligently once they have knowledge of the fault and have identified, at least preliminarily, those responsible. The appellant rightly notes that it is impossible to apply any prescription during the stage in which it is being briefly investigated whether the anomalous act existed or the possible culprits are being identified. However, from the moment that information is available, the employer entity is obliged to initiate due process. The consequences of abandoning this power, from that moment on, are solely the exclusive responsibility of the employer. Regarding this issue, it has been said: 'the administrative procedure must begin within one month from when knowledge of the facts is obtained. Later, once the investigation has begun, if it is unjustifiably stopped for more than one month, prescription occurs. The same happens if, once the investigation is concluded and the file is prepared by the investigating body, the decision-maker does not adopt the final act within one month following the date on which they are in a position to do so (see our ruling No. 938-05 in this regard). It is important to bear in mind that the employer's knowledge of the irregularity that triggers the start of the prescription period is qualified knowledge, that is, it is not superficial or generic, or mere rumor or general comment, but must be precise, exact, and certain, particularly when the type of fault is unclear and requires a preliminary investigation or an audit study to determine if there is sufficient merit to open a disciplinary case (on this topic, see rulings No. 450-05 and 725-07 from this office). In such a scenario, while the audit reports are being prepared, it is clear that the prescription period does not begin to run; rather, it begins to run from when the result of the prior investigation is brought to the knowledge of the body competent to sanction (in this sense, read pronouncements No. 334-99, 721-04, and 386-06 from this Chamber). Obviously, this preliminary stage must have a reasonable duration, as was pointed out in our ruling No. 672-04.' As indicated in this text, taken from a previous ruling issued by this Chamber (number 953-11, at 10:35 hours on November 18, 2011), not every comment or rumor triggers the start of the prescription period; it must be certain, reasonably verifiable knowledge, particularly when the type of fault committed is unclear. In ruling number 672 of 9:30 hrs. on August 18, 2004, it was also stated: 'In the specific case, the fact that a preliminary investigation was conducted prior to the dismissal proceeding is not sufficient to conclude that the Minister's right to seek dismissal had prescribed; for it must be interpreted that the knowledge referred to in the regulations is certain knowledge; that is, knowledge that allows the superior to have certainty about the appropriateness of the dismissal proceeding. The investigation carried out by a body inferior to the superior, which as the Constitutional Chamber indicated is precautionary in nature, can in no way result in the prescription of the right to subsequently seek dismissal by the person who has the competence to do so.' That is to say, as long as the existence of the fact or its authorship is not clear, no prescriptive period runs against the Administration. However, if through the conclusion agreed upon in the prior investigation the possible perpetrators of the act are identified, from that point on, the Administration’s period begins to run, whether to appoint the directing body of the procedure or to issue the order to open the case and notify the charges." Thus, starting from the premise that Article 9 of the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) establishes: "1. The administrative legal system is independent of other branches of law. Only in the case where there is no applicable administrative regulation, written or unwritten, shall private law and its principles apply. 2. In the case of integration, due to a gap in the written administrative system, jurisprudence, general principles of public law, custom, and private law and its principles shall apply, in that order.", and in the interest of integrating the legal system and resolving possible gaps regarding applicable prescription periods, what was ordered by the Second Chamber is reasonable: to establish that, precisely in the absence of an administrative regulation, the general prescription period established in private labor law, now Article 414 (formerly 603) of the Labor Code, applies. This establishes a maximum limit of one month for the employer to sanction its employees, in consideration of the position of power held by this labor party, in addition to legal certainty and the protection of the weakest party in the relationship. It is clear, of course, that in public matters, unlike in the private sector, there is an obligation to apply the principle of due process derived from Article 39 of the Political Constitution, as the Constitutional Chamber has indicated since its rulings 15-90 and 1739-92, in which it developed the minimum content of that principle for the purposes of understanding and applying it, by the principle of legality (Articles 11 of the Political Constitution and the General Law of Public Administration), in the actions of the public sector as a guarantee for the persons subjected—as in the matter before us—to a disciplinary proceeding.
Now, taking the foregoing into account, and following the same line of what has been developed, a distinction must be made in administrative disciplinary matters regarding the stages considered as general to the procedure to be followed when seeking to sanction an official. Hence, the possible need has been established that, once the facts are known (original starting point), they may be subjected to a preliminary investigation for the purposes of clearly determining the valid reasons why the procedure would be initiated (merit to proceed). If necessary, and once it is carried out, the administration must decide whether or not to initiate the disciplinary procedure itself, which must be continuous, meaning without unjustified interruptions and always aimed at ascertaining the truth regarding the facts charged against the investigated party, for which all proceedings corresponding to that evidentiary stage may be carried out. Finally, once the procedure is concluded with the necessary guarantees, the administration must rule on the matter. It must be noted that, regarding the duration of the stages of the preliminary investigation or the investigation itself, considering the application of the principle of due process, as well as the specific regulations of each entity or body, it will depend on the requirements established; in any case, if a special regulation exists, its deadlines will generally be mandatory but not peremptory; and in case of omission, the provisions of the General Law of Public Administration itself regarding the development of the ordinary procedure and reasonableness itself—which will be analyzed for each specific case—would apply. However, as regards the prescription periods, in cases where the administrative regulation is silent, the stages of a general sanctioning procedure that would be subject to the application of the private regulation by integration, i.e., the one-month prescription, would be, taking the commission and/or knowledge of the facts as a starting point: a) the eventual start of the preliminary investigation; b) the start of the investigation itself; and, once the investigation is concluded: c) the making of the final decision. In summary, as has been insisted, for these stages there is no single applicable prescription period; rather, this will depend on the special nature of the administrative procedure. In each of the mentioned stages, the specific prescription period established in each administrative regulation applicable to the case will apply, and if that regulation is silent on establishing the prescription period, by integration and in order not to violate the principles of legal certainty and the protective principle of labor law, the one-month period provided by Article 414 of the Labor Code will apply.
VI.- The specific case.
For the purpose of delimiting the scope of this judgment in the case brought before this jurisdiction, it must be noted that the representation of Mr. [Name 001] has focused solely on attacking the Executive Branch's agreement through which the dismissal was finalized, centering its argument solely on the application of a one-month prescription that, in its view, entails the loss of the administrative disciplinary power. Having established that aspect, this analysis will only be confined precisely to determining whether the alleged prescription existed or not, and from there, determining its effects and scope for the specific case and under its circumstances. a) The stages of the special sanctioning procedure for teachers: Regarding the procedure for sanctioning a teacher, it is special and is regulated in the Civil Service Statute (ESC) and its Regulations.
In that regulation, the procedure begins in Article 65 by establishing the preliminary investigation, in which the Personnel or Human Resources Department of the Ministry will proceed to verify the information available, will ratify the charges made by the complainant, and will evacuate evidence, all for the purpose of drawing up a record and thereby determining whether or not to initiate the procedure. In a second step, if there are grounds to initiate the procedure, it will be opened by means of the corresponding transfer of charges (traslado de cargos), which must be notified, and ten days are granted for the investigated party to exercise their defense; the corresponding evidence will be evacuated, and the existence or not of a serious offense must be assessed (Article 69 of the ESC). In a third stage, according to sections 70 through 73 of the ESC, if the offense is considered serious, the Personnel Department will proceed to verify the existence of procedural defects up to that point—it will not assess the case itself—and will issue an authorization to the Minister to dismiss, a situation that is not binding on the ministerial head. In a fourth step, according to Article 74 of the ESC, the head of the education portfolio (Minister) will have one month (expiry period, plazo de caducidad) to present the matter before the Tribunal de Servicio Civil, or to apply the commutation (conmutación) established in Article 62 of the same regulation, the latter upon prior recommendation of the Tribunal de Servicio Civil. If the matter has been elevated to the aforementioned Tribunal, it has two options: first, the possibility of ordering more evidence, or to proceed with what is already in the case file; in any case, it must resolve, against which an appeal (recurso de apelación) may be filed within three days before the Tribunal Administrativo de Servicio Civil. Thus, when it is resolved without an appeal being filed, or once the appeal is resolved, the path will be clear so that, in accordance with the provisions of section 140, subsection two of the Constitución Política, if appropriate according to what was resolved by the aforementioned Tribunal, the Poder Ejecutivo may formally order the dismissal. As can be seen, said procedure is complex and, for our purposes, does not provide for statute-of-limitations periods (términos de prescripción) for the general stages as we had outlined in the preceding whereas clause (considerando); it only provides an expiry period (plazo de caducidad) of one month in one of the steps, which is the one in which the head of the Ministerio de Educación Pública must decide whether to elevate the matter to the Tribunal de Servicio Civil, a technical body that will resolve by providing the basis for whatever corresponds regarding the dismissal proceeding submitted to it. It must also be noted that, regarding the investigation stage, according to section 26 of the Reglamento de la Carrera Docente, it must be concluded within the directory period of three months.
"V.- Sobre los plazos de prescripción aplicables en los procedimientos disciplinarios del sector público.
Sin entrar aún al análisis del fondo del asunto que nos ocupa, este Colegio debe referirse a los términos de prescripción que deben ser aplicables en un procedimiento disciplinario, ello atendiendo a que en torno a ese aspecto, ha existido vacío en la normativa, que ha generado una serie de análisis y aplicaciones diversas que han desembocado con varios criterios al respecto. En ese sentido, debe partirse de que el instituto de la prescripción determina un "castigo" por la inercia en la actuación debida sin una justificación propia, adecuada y válida (factores de interrupción). En la materia disciplinaria de la administración, por el fin que conlleva, y que sus sanciones podrían afectar los principios de estabilidad e inamovilidad propios del empleo público, es de suma importancia que las autoridades encargadas de esos procedimientos tengan muy claro los términos de prescripción aplicables, los que, en un primer estadio del razonamiento jurídico, derivarán de la normativa especial aplicable a cada caso, ya que, para nadie es un secreto que, en materia de empleo publico existe una diversidad de normativa desde la general del Estatuto del Servicio Civil, la que en un principio desarrollaría la disposición constitucional contenida en el numeral 191 de la Carta Magna, con una idea de norma única para todo el sector publico, pero, lo cierto es que el Estatuto solo quedó en su aplicación para los funcionarios de la administración central y ello provocó un desarrollo prolijo de una considerable cantidad de normativa especial para el mismo sector estatal, pero conforme a necesidades e intereses distintos, que llevaron a que las relaciones entre el Estado y sus servidores tengan a su haber una diversidad de normativa. El problema que se ha presentado no lo es cuando existe norma especial, pues será esa la que indefectiblemente sea aplicada. Si no, en los casos en que esa normativa sea omisa en torno a los términos y alcances de la prescripción aplicable. En este último sentido, la Sala Segunda de la Corte Suprema de Justicia en sentencia 515 de las nueve horas cincuenta minutos, del trece de junio de dos mil doce, hizo un análisis muy interesante acerca de la aplicación, aún en el procedimiento administrativo sancionatorio, del término de un mes dispuesto en el otrora numeral 603 del Código de Trabajo, señaló: "El Título Décimo del Código de Trabajo regula expresamente las diversas prescripciones que pueden operar en relación con derechos derivados de una contratación laboral, con independencia de si estos pertenecen al sector privado o público. En cuanto a la prescripción de la potestad del empleador para disciplinar a sus trabajadores o trabajadoras por las faltas cometidas, la norma del numeral 603 de ese Código dice: "Los derechos y acciones de los patronos para despedir justificadamente a los trabajadores o para disciplinar sus faltas prescriben en un mes, que comenzará a correr desde que se dio causa para la separación o, en su caso, desde que fueron conocidos los hechos que dieron lugar a la corrección disciplinaria". Ambos supuestos “…desde que se dio causa para la separación o, en su caso, desde que fueron conocidos los hechos que dieron lugar a la corrección disciplinaria” aunque diferenciados, suponen el necesario conocimiento que debe tener el patrono o sus representantes, de la falta y de sus posibles autores, pues la prescripción tiene un claro fundamento: sancionar la inercia del titular de un derecho, que no ejerce sus facultades. De modo que no puede sancionarse con la prescripción a un patrono que desconozca la comisión de un hecho anómalo, o bien, la identidad de sus responsables pues es evidente que toda sanción tiene un centro de imputación subjetiva, que no existiría en tanto no exista aquella identificación. El punto de partida de la prescripción es entonces el momento en que se tenga conocimiento de los hechos y de sus posibles responsables. Esta regla impera tanto en el sector público como en el privado. Sin embargo, en el público se debe atemperar porque la administración está obligada, de previo a la imposición de la sanción, a respetar el debido proceso administrativo. El debido proceso en esta sede no es solo una garantía de la persona trabajadora, le permite también a la entidad patronal lograr una mayor certeza del que será el fundamento fáctico de su decisión: la verdad real. Por eso se ha dicho que en el caso de las entidades públicas, cuyo ejercicio disciplinario está condicionado al cumplimiento previo del debido proceso, no basta el conocimiento que tenga la entidad patronal de la comisión del hecho o aún más, de su supuesta autoría. La entidad patronal deberá agotar previamente el contradictorio administrativo y solo entonces, la jerarquía patronal podrá dictar el acto respectivo. Por esa razón, de manera reiterada se ha resuelto que en tales casos, el mes estipulado en el artículo 603 citado comenzará a correr a partir de que el órgano encargado de tomar la decisión esté en posición de adoptarla, es decir, una vez que es impuesto de la conclusión final de la investigación. Sin embargo, la obligación de agotar la garantía del debido proceso administrativo no da lugar a interpretar que la administración pueda desentenderse del plazo prescriptivo al que como patrono se encuentra sujeto. La defensa de prescripción se constituye en un derecho que ampara a las personas trabajadoras. Sin lugar a dudas, el plazo dispuesto por la norma mencionada -que aplica de manera general tanto en el sector público como en el privado, salvo los casos excepcionales contemplados en normas especiales- es corto. Esa brevedad evidencia el interés del legislador de impedir que los trabajadores y trabajadoras puedan verse enfrascados en períodos prolongados de incertidumbre, en relación con la sanción a faltas que hubieran podido cometer, situación nada conveniente para quien depende de su trabajo. Por esa razón, las entidades públicas que tienen la obligación de agotar un procedimiento administrativo, previo a la imposición de una sanción disciplinaria, están en la obligación de actuar de manera diligente una vez que tienen conocimiento de la falta e identificados, al menos preliminarmente, a sus responsables. Bien advierte el recurrente que es imposible aplicar cualquier prescripción durante la etapa en la cual se investiga someramente si el hecho anómalo existió; o se identifican los posibles culpables. Sin embargo, a partir del momento en que se cuenta con esa información, la entidad patronal sí está obligada a iniciar el debido proceso. Las consecuencias del abandono de esa facultad, a partir de ese momento, son solo de la exclusiva responsabilidad patronal. En relación con este tema se ha dicho: “el procedimiento administrativo tiene que empezar dentro del mes a partir de que se tenga conocimiento de los hechos. Luego, ya comenzada la pesquisa, si esta se paraliza injustificadamente por más de un mes, se produce la prescripción. Lo mismo ocurre si, concluida la investigación e instruido el expediente por el órgano instructor, el decisor no adopta el acto final dentro del mes siguiente a que esté en posibilidad de hacerlo (al respecto revísese nuestro fallo n° 938-05). Es importante tener presente que el conocimiento patronal de la irregularidad que da inicio al cómputo de la prescripción es aquel que sea calificado, es decir, que no resulte superficial o genérico, o sea el mero rumor o comentario general, sino que debe ser preciso, exacto y cierto, particularmente cuando el tipo de falta es poco clara y requiere de una investigación preliminar o de un estudio de auditoría para determinar si existe mérito suficiente para abrir una causa disciplinaria (sobre este tema véanse las sentencias de este despacho n°s 450-05 y 725-07). En tal supuesto, mientras se elaboran los informes de auditoría es claro que no empieza a correr el plazo de la prescripción, sino que este empieza a discurrir a partir de que el resultado de la investigación previa es puesto en conocimiento del órgano competente para sancionar (en este sentido léanse los pronunciamientos n°s 334-99, 721-04 y 386-06 de esta Sala). Obviamente, esa etapa preliminar ha de tener una duración razonable, como se puntualizó en nuestro voto N° 672-04”. Como se indica en este texto, tomado de un voto anterior dictado por esta Sala (el número 953-11, de 10:35 horas de 18 de noviembre de 2011) no es todo comentario o rumor el que dispara el inicio del cómputo de la prescripción; precisa que sea un conocimiento cierto, razonablemente comprobable, particularmente cuando el tipo de falta cometido es poco claro. En el Voto número 672 de 9:30 hrs. de 18 de agosto de 2004, también se señaló: “En el caso concreto el hecho de haberse levantado una información previa a la gestión de despido no es suficiente para concluir que el derecho del Ministro a gestionar el despido prescribió; pues, debe interpretarse que el conocimiento al que alude la normativa es un conocimiento cierto; es decir, que le permita al jerarca tener la seguridad sobre la procedencia de la gestión de despido. La información realizada por un órgano inferior al jerarca, que como lo indicó la Sala Constitucional tiene carácter cautelar, en modo alguno puede tener como consecuencia la prescripción del derecho a gestionar luego el despido, por quien tiene la competencia para hacerlo.” Es decir, que mientras no resulte clara la existencia del hecho o su autoría, a la Administración no le corre ningún plazo prescriptivo. Sin embargo, si de la conclusión acordada en la investigación previa resultan identificados los posibles responsables del hecho, a partir de ahí a la Administración le corre el plazo bien sea para nombrar el órgano director del procedimiento; o para dictar el auto de apertura y traslado de cargos.". Así las cosas, partiendo que el artículo 9 de la Ley General de la Administración Pública establece: "1. El ordenamiento jurídico administrativo es independiente de otros ramos del derecho. Solamente el caso en que no haya norma administrativa aplicable, escrita o no escrita, se aplicará el derecho privados y sus principios. 2. Caso de integración, por laguna del ordenamiento administrativo escrito, se aplicarán, por su orden, la jurisprudencia, los principios generales del derecho público, la costumbre y el derecho privado y sus principios.", y en aras de integrar el ordenamiento jurídico y solventar los posibles vacíos en cuanto a los términos de prescripción aplicables, resulta razonable lo dispuesto por la Sala Segunda y establecer que precisamente ante omisión de la norma administrativa, el término de prescripción general establecido en la norma laboral privada, sea el actual numeral 414 (anterior 603) del Código de Trabajo, el cual establece como límite máximo de un mes para que el patrono pueda sancionar a sus empleados, ello atendiendo a la posición de poder que ostenta esta parte laboral, además de la certeza jurídica y de protección a la parte más débil de la relación. Claro está que, se debe tener muy claro que en materia pública, a diferencia de la privada, existe la obligación de aplicar el principio del debido proceso derivado del artículo 39 de la Constitución Política, tal y como lo ha indicado la Sala Constitucional desde sus sentencias 15-90 y 1739-92 en las que desarrolló el contenido mínimo de ese principio a los efectos de entender y aplicarlo por principio de legalidad (artículos 11 de la Constitución Política y Ley General de la Administración Pública) en la actuación del sector público en garantía de las personas sometidas, como en lo que nos ocupa, en un procedimiento disciplinario. Ahora bien, tomando en cuenta lo anterior, y siguiendo la misma línea de lo que se ha venido desarrollando, hay que distinguir en la materia disciplinaria administrativa, las etapas consideradas como generales del procedimiento a seguir cuando se quiere sancionar a un funcionario, de allí que se ha establecido la necesidad eventual, de que una vez conocidos los hechos (punto de partida original), puedan ser sometidos a una investigación preliminar a los efectos de la determinación clara de los motivos válidos por los cuales se iniciaría el procedimiento (mérito para proseguir). De ser necesaria y una vez realizada la misma, la administración debe decidir si inicia o no el procedimiento disciplinario propiamente dicho, el cual deberá ser continuo, entiéndase sin interrupciones injustificadas y siempre tendiente a la averiguación de la verdad respecto de los hechos endilgados al investigado, para lo cual se podrán realizar todas las diligencias que correspondan a esa etapa probatoria; finalmente una vez concluido el procedimiento con las garantías necesarias, la administración deberá resolver al respecto. Debe indicarse que en lo referido a la duración de las etapas de la investigación preliminar o de la investigación propia, atendiendo la aplicación del principio del debido proceso, así como la normativa propia de cada ente u órgano, dependerá de las exigencias que se establezcan, y que en todo caso, de existir norma especial, sus plazos generalmente serán ordenatorios y no perentorios; y ante omisión aplicarían las disposiciones de la misma Ley General de la Administración Pública en lo tocante al desarrollo del procedimiento ordinario y la razonabilidad misma que será analizada para cada caso en concreto. Mas, en lo que interesa, en cuanto a los términos de prescripción, en los casos en que la normativa administrativa sea omisa, las etapas de un procedimiento sancionatorio general que estarían sometidas a la aplicación de la norma privada por integración, sea el mes de prescripción, serían, tomando como punto de partida la comisión y,o conocimiento de los hechos: a) el eventual inicio de la investigación preliminar, y b) el inicio de la propia investigación, así como a partir de la finalización de la investigación: c) La toma de la decisión final. Resumiendo, tal y como se ha insistido, para dichas etapas no hay un único termino de prescripción aplicable, sino que éste dependerá de la especialidad del procedimiento administrativo, siendo que en cada una de las mencionadas etapas, será aplicable el término de prescripción concreto establecido en cada norma administrativa aplicable al caso, y de ser omisa esa norma en establecer el término de prescripción, por integración y en aras de no violentar los principios de certeza jurídica y protector de la materia laboral, será aplicable el término de un mes dispuesto por el artículo 414 del Código de Trabajo.
VI.- Del caso en concreto. A efectos de delimitar los alcances de esta sentencia en el caso que se ha presentado a esta jurisdicción, se debe indicar que la representación del señor [Nombre 001] se ha concentrado únicamente en atacar el acuerdo del Poder Ejecutivo mediante el cual se concretó el despidió, centrando su alegato solo a la aplicación de la prescripción de un mes que en su criterio conlleva la pérdida de la potestad disciplinaria administrativa. Establecido ese aspecto, el presente análisis solo se circunscribirá precisamente en determinar si existió o no la prescripción alegada, y de allí determinar los efectos y alcances de la misma para el caso concreto y bajo las circunstancias del mismo. a) De las etapas del procedimiento especial sancionatorio en materia de docentes: En lo que respecta al procedimiento de sanción a un docente, es especial y se encuentra regulado en el Estatuto del Servicio Civil (ESC) y su Reglamento. En dicha normativa, el procedimiento inicia en el artículo 65 estableciendo la investigación preliminar, en la cual, el Departamento de Personal o Recursos Humanos del Ministerio procederá a verificar la información con la que se cuenta, ratificará los cargos que hiciera el denunciante y evacuará prueba, todo con el fin de levantar un acta y con ello determinar o no el inicio del procedimiento. En un segundo paso, de existir mérito para iniciar el procedimiento así se abrirá mediante el respectivo traslado de cargos que deberá notificarse y se otorgaron diez días para ejercer la defensa por parte del investigado, se evacuará la prueba que corresponda, debiéndose valorar la existencia o no de una falta grave (Artículo 69 del ESC). En un tercer estadio, según los numerales que van del 70 al 73 del ESC, de considerarse la falta grave, el Departamento de Personal procederá a verificar la existencia de defectos en el procedimiento hasta ese momento -no valorará el caso en sí- y emitirá una autorización al Ministro para despedir, situación que no es vinculante para el jerarca ministerial. En un cuarto paso, según el artículo 74 del ESC, el jerarca de la cartera de educación (Ministr@) tendrá un mes (plazo de caducidad) para presentar la gestión ante el Tribunal de Servicio Civil, o para aplicar la conmutación que establece el artículo 62 de la misma normativa, esto último previa recomendación del Tribunal de Servicio Civil. De haberse elevado el asunto al Tribunal mencionado, este tiene dos opciones, la primera la posibilidad de ordenar más prueba, o quedarse con la que ya tiene el expediente, en todo caso, debe resolver, contra lo cual cabe el recurso de apelación dentro de tercero día y ante el Tribunal Administrativo de Servicio Civil. Así, cuando se resuelva sin que se presente apelación o resuelta la apelación, quedará habilitado el camino para que, de conformidad con lo dispuesto en el numeral 140 inciso segundo de la Constitución Política, de ser procedente conforme a lo resuelto por el Tribunal mencionado, el Poder Ejecutivo disponga el despido formalmente. Como se ha podido notar, dicho procedimiento es complejo y en lo que nos interesa, no contempla términos de prescripción de las etapas generales como habíamos reseñado en el considerando anterior, tan solo dispone un plazo de caducidad, de un mes en uno de los pasos y es aquél en el cual el jerarca del Ministerio de Educación deba definir si eleva el asunto a conocimiento del Tribunal de Servicio Civil, órgano técnico que resolverá dando el sustento a lo que corresponda respecto de la gestión de despido que se le haga llegar. Debe indicarse además que, en cuanto a la etapa de investigación, conforme al numeral 26 del Reglamento de la Carrera Docente, la misma deberá concluirse dentro del plazo ordenatorio de tres meses. b) Del término de prescripción aplicable a este asunto y de la disconformidad con el ordenamiento jurídico. Según lo desarrollado en el considerando anterior, cabe ahora el análisis de lo alegado por las partes en cuanto a la existencia o no del término de prescripción y si es aplicable. La parte demandada, entre sus alegatos esgrime que al caso hay que relacionarlo con la Ley contra la Corrupción N° 8422, al indicar que existe en la especie infracción al deber de probidad (artículos 3 y 4 de dicha ley), posición que no comparte este Tribunal, no solo porque en la intimación que se le hiciera al señor [Nombre 001] en su momento procedimental (Ver folio 105 del expediente administrativo), la administración no lo incluyó dentro de su fundamentación, elemento de suma importancia, pues su omisión y posterior alegato, acarrearía la violación al derecho de defensa. Además, sería demasiado amplio entender, como parece lo hace la representación del Estado en la mayoría de los casos de esta naturaleza que, siempre estaría latente la violación al deber de probidad, lo cual es muy poco concreto de esa forma y a la vez un recurso desleal para la defensa de los intereses del Estado, ya que así refieren a la aplicación del artículo 71 de la Ley Orgánica de la Contraloría General de la República y con ello extienden el plazo de prescripción general a cinco años. Por otra parte, el actor alude a que en su caso, hubo un atraso de dieciocho días en el que incurrió el Poder Ejecutivo en acordar su despido, más allá del mes de prescripción que aduce. En efecto, se ha podido constatar que en la especie, luego del rechazo por extemporáneo del recurso de apelación planteado por el señor [Nombre 001] contra la resolución que emitió el Tribunal del Servicio Civil, resolución N° 16038 que le fue notificada al Ministerio de Educación Pública el día 6 de diciembre de 2016 (Folio 157 del expediente administrativo), con lo cual, y a partir de ese momento, el Poder Ejecutivo tenía un mes para dictar el acuerdo que reafirmaba el despido del servidor conforme a lo que había dispuesto el Tribunal de Servicio Civil, situación que no acaeció sino hasta el día 24 de enero de 2017, cuando se emitió el acuerdo N° 6-2017-AC (Imagen 361 del expediente judicial digital), siendo que, ante la Prueba para mejor proveer pedida por este Tribunal, además, pudo percatarse de que dicho acto fue realmente firmado por la Ministra de Educación Sonia Marta Mora Escalante hasta el 27 de enero siguiente y por parte del Presidente de la República hasta el 30 de enero de 2017 (Imagen 352 del expediente judicial digital), siendo que ya para ese momento incluso se había ejecutado el despido el cual tenía un rige a partir del 28 de enero de 2017 (Ver documento que corre en la parte del expediente administrativo no foliado que fuera emitido por la Dirección Regional de Santa Cruz del Ministerio de Educación Pública). Y que, finalmente, la publicación respectiva por ser un acto del Poder Ejecutivo lo fue en el diario oficial La Gaceta N° 38 del miércoles 22 de febrero de 2017 (Parte del expediente administrativo sin foliar e Imagen 343 del expediente judicial digital). Con lo cual, se puede determinar efectivamente que, en la especie si se vulneró el término de un mes de prescripción establecido en el artículo 414 del Código de Trabajo, aplicable por integración ante la omisión de la norma especial en disponerlo. Con lo cual llevaría razón la parte actora cuando en sus pretensiones solicita sea declarado dicho acto disconforme con el ordenamiento jurídico, en el tanto, el mismo fue dictado fuera de plazo indicado. c) Acerca de la Nulidad de la conducta alegada. Si bien existe disconformidad del acto indicado con el ordenamiento jurídico, es necesario analizar la pretensión separada del actor de declarar la nulidad del mismo. En esta jurisdicción se ha insistido y mantenido desde hace muchos años el principio de la no existencia de la nulidad por la nulidad misma, ello derivado del principio de conservación de los actos y en este asunto, sería además aplicable el numeral 329 acápite tercero de la Ley General de la Administración Pública, en el cual se determina que el acto final recaído fuera de plazo será válido para todo efecto legal, salvo disposición en contrario de la ley, que en el caso concreto no se da, ya que como se ha indicado ni siquiera estableció la normativa especial en donde expresamente determinara la prescripción, mucho menos en lo referido al efecto anulatorio del acto. Incluso, debe hacerse referencia a que el artículo 340 de esa misma Ley General, señala que no procederá la caducidad del procedimiento cuando el expediente se encuentre listo para el dictado del acto final. Y es que, en el asunto bajo estudio, debe partirse de algunos elementos que hacen viable la no anulación de lo actuado. En primer término, en el procedimiento disciplinario seguido en su contra, el señor [Nombre 001] luego de la notificación personal que se le hiciera de la intimación de hechos mediante resolución N° AJD-RES-565-2015 de la Dirección General de Servicio Civil, de las 9:30 horas del 20 de octubre de 2015 (Folios 105 y 125 del expediente administrativo), el investigado no ejerció su derecho de defensa, lo que provocó que en dicho procedimiento fuera aplicada la posibilidad legal establecida en el numeral 43 del Estatuto de Servicio Civil, sea ante la omisión del investigado, el asunto deba ser trasladado de forma inmediata al Tribunal de Servicio Civil para que decida sobre el fondo, lo cual se hizo mediante resolución N° AJD-RES-648-2015 de la Dirección de Servicio Civil de las 9:35 horas del 30 de noviembre de 2015 (Folio 126 expediente administrativo). Así, el Tribunal de Servicio Civil en resolución N° 12568 de las las 8:20 horas del 20 de enero de 2016 dispuso declarar Con Lugar la gestión promovida por la Ministra de Educación para despedir al funcionario [Nombre 001] (Folio 130 del expediente administrativo). Y no solo ello, sino que, fue hasta la notificación de esa resolución final del procedimiento, en el que se sustentó el despido del funcionario, cuando reaccionó el señor [Nombre 001] planteando una apelación, lo cual lo hizo tardíamente, provocando su rechazo por extemporáneo (Folio 154 del expediente administrativo). Con todo lo cual se puede determinar que, habiendo tenido la posibilidad de defenderse en su oportunidad procesal no lo hizo, o si lo hizo fue tardíamente, y ahora, en sede jurisdiccional no solo no ataca la resolución en la cual técnica y fundadamente se analizaron los hechos de la gestión de despido aceptándolos como causal para su separación del cargo, pues la parte actora en esta demanda solo apostó a la impugnación del acuerdo del Poder Ejecutivo por prescripción, sea, nunca discutió jurisdiccionalmente lo actuado y resuelto en sede administrativa, lo que para este Tribunal resulta incongruente, pues lo perseguido es únicamente que, por el vencimiento de un término, se logre una nulidad de un acto sin atacar propiamente el sustento del fondo, en el cual, en este caso se despidió al funcionario, ya que en la demanda que nos ocupa no se dio ni un solo alegato de forma o fondo contra el procedimiento seguido, sino solo contra el acuerdo del poder Ejecutivo. Y es que, aunado a lo anterior, debe considerarse que el acuerdo impugnado, en tratándose del despido de un servidor público, se da como efecto de lo dispuesto en la Constitución Política (artículo 140.2), conducta que en sí no comporta el análisis de la existencia o no de la causal para el despido, sino que, ello se reserva por disposición legal al resultado emitido por un órgano técnico que analizó el caso y dispuso la procedencia o no del despido, previo procedimiento en el que se respetara el debido proceso y el derecho de defensa, por ello no puede entenderse que el acuerdo del Poder Ejecutivo sea uno de mera ejecución, sino que, se trata de un acto compuesto, ya que la decisión final comprende tanto lo decidido por el Tribunal de Servicio Civil o del Tribunal Administrativo del Servicio Civil, según sea el caso, en el cual el órgano competente legalmente es el que establece la existencia de la o las causales y el sustento jurídico del despido, y que indefectiblemente le da base a la otra parte de la conducta, que es el acuerdo del Poder Ejecutivo formal dispuesto por la Carta Fundamental. En efecto ello sucedió en este caso, pues como puede extraerse con suma claridad, el acuerdo N° 6-2017-AC del Poder Ejecutivo (Imagen 361 del expediente judicial digital), hace referencia clara que se basa en las resoluciones 12568 de las 8:20 horas del del 20 de enero de 2016 y la de las 19:45 horas del 29 de noviembre de 2016, ambas del Tribunal de Servicio Civil, siendo en la primera mencionada precisamente donde de forma fundada se estableció el despido del servidor [Nombre 001]. Así las cosas, por todo lo expuesto, este Tribunal considera que se mantiene en la especie la potestad disciplinaria y no procede la declaración de nulidad del acuerdo N° 6-2017-AC del Poder Ejecutivo."
Document not found. Documento no encontrado.