Comptroller oversight in the CCSS's special drug procurement regimeControl de la Contraloría en régimen especial de contratación de medicamentos de la CCSS

Res. No. 2007-001557 CONSTITUTIONAL CHAMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE. San José, at fifteen hours thirty-six minutes on the seventh of February of two thousand seven.

Action of unconstitutionality brought by Aldo Milano Sánchez, of legal age, married, attorney, resident of San Rafael de Montes de Oca, identity card number 1-688-989, in his capacity as special judicial representative of the company Pfizer, Sociedad Anónima, against Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, added by Law number 6914 of the twenty-eighth of November of nineteen eighty-three. Also intervening in this proceeding are Farid Beirute Brenes, as Deputy Procurator, Rodrigo Coredero Fernández and Judith Reyes Castillo representing the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, and Rocío Aguilar Montoya, in her capacity as Comptroller General of the Republic.

Resultando:

1.- By a document received at the Secretariat of the Chamber at thirteen hours five minutes on the twenty-sixth of May of two thousand four, the claimant requests that the unconstitutionality of Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, added by Law number 6914, be declared, as he alleges that after the amendment established to the cited article by law number 6914, a special type of contracting procedure was incorporated into the legal system that the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social may use for the purchase of certain medicines. He states that the company he represents is precisely a supplier of medicines for the cited institution and that in such capacity it must participate within such special contracting procedure, which suffers from several defects that render it unconstitutional. He points out that fundamentally the procedure established by the challenged article qualifies as a modality of the genus of direct contracting, such that the principles of Article 182 of the Constitution take a back seat, being displaced by a procedure like that of direct contracting, which is usually employed only by way of exception. The consequences, most clearly contradictory to Article 182 of the Constitution and its principles, are, according to the claimant, that regardless of the amount of the transaction, it is not possible to file appeals of objection to the tender document before the Office of the Comptroller General, nor can an appeal be filed against the award decision before the cited body, besides the fact that the sole supervisory intervention of the comptroller body consists of issuing an authorization for the award decision within five days, also without taking into account the amount of the transaction. The claimant affirms that such consequences of the challenged norm clearly contravene constitutional principles established by the Chamber for administrative contracting, and specifically the following: a) the fundamental right to appeal award decisions for public purchases of special quantitative and qualitative importance before an impartial body, recognized and applied by the constitutional review body in various rulings, notably in resolutions 998-98 and 2832-98 of the Constitutional Chamber; b) the notion of intangibility for the ordinary legislator of the supervisory powers over the Public Treasury (Hacienda Pública) by the comptroller body, enshrined in the Constitution, which the Constitutional Chamber has had the opportunity to describe and delimit, for example, in ruling number 2430-94, as well as in the same rulings numbers 998-98 and 5947-98, among others. c) the principle of control of procedures regarding which the Chamber has been consistent in its case law in pointing to it as a parameter of constitutionality when analyzing regulations related to administrative contracting. In conclusion, these three notions that the Chamber has established as forming part of the constitutional framework in matters of administrative contracting are seen to be seriously threatened, if not entirely eliminated, by the questioned Article 72 insofar as a procedure is legislatively imposed that disregards the application of essential principles, without being in any of the exceptions that the Chamber has also permitted, taking into account various factors. The claimant points out that in the case in question, we find ordinary administrative contracting of all amounts, which by the mere will of the legislator have been excluded from the general rules and the constitutional principles that regulate the subject, which is unacceptable in light of Constitutional Law.

2.- By resolution of thirteen hours fifty minutes on the first of June of two thousand four, (visible on folio 46 front and back of the case file), the action was admitted, granting an audience to the Procuraduría General de la República and the Executive President of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social.

3.- By resolution of thirteen hours fifty minutes on the thirteenth of July of two thousand six, (visible on folio 265 of the case file), an audience was granted to the Contraloría General de la República.

4.- Farid Beirute Brenes, of legal age, married, attorney, resident of San José, identity card number 1-394-673, in his capacity as Deputy Procurator General, appeared to answer the audience granted to his represented party and points out that in his opinion, for reasons of public interest, the legislator decided to establish a special procedure for certain purchases by the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, which is not unusual given that particularized treatment for the purchase of medicines is accepted because they are fundamental for health. For the Procuraduría, the challenged procedure, contained in Article 72 of the discussed Law, does not establish a direct contracting, whose nature would indeed be exceptional, but rather its provisions make it much more similar to what is called a registered supplier tender (licitación por registro). It is indicated that to purchase medicines, a competitive process is promoted among interested parties registered in a registry, and it is not plausible to understand that there is discretion to request quotes from whomever one wishes, but rather it must be understood that all registered parties must be invited. It must be recalled that the questioned procedure was inserted as a special one compared to that established in the Financial Administration Law (Ley de Administración Financiera), and from such a perspective, it could not be said that it was a direct contracting process. Thus, the procedure constitutes an exception to the public tender (licitación pública), since it applies to any amount, and it differs from the private tender (licitación privada) because it better protects competition. The Procuraduría affirms that Article 182 of the Constitution affirms the possibility for the legislator to establish types of tenders and the administration is not obliged to process exclusively public tenders. What must be preserved and protected is the application and verification in contracting processes of the essential principles of the competitive process, among which are publicity, competition, equal opportunities, and transparency. These elements must be the main object of control, which cannot be merely formal on the part of the authorities or the Office of the Comptroller General, and even less a control of "formal legality" as seems to follow from resolutions of that Office of the Comptroller General. In sound reasoning, the participation of the Office of the Comptroller General through an authorization given after the process has been completed by the administration must include control not only of the award decision but of the entire procedure. Regarding the reasonableness of the contracting procedure, it is questioned whether an unreasonable procedure has been defined, as proven by the fact that the Caja continues to contract through direct invitation (citación directa) for the purchase of medicines because the deadlines of the special law are not respected by the authorities themselves. However, the fact that the means is not the most suitable does not mean it is unconstitutional. Added to this is the fact that the unreasonableness would arise from the actions of the authorities and not from the design itself. The absence of appropriate control over administrative contracting is protested because there is no appeal for objection to the tender document or appeal against the award decision before the Office of the Comptroller General, which violates the right to administrative justice. For the Procuraduría, it must be recalled that although the appeal by individuals against resolutions that affect them forms part of due process, this does not oblige that the Office of the Comptroller General must be the one to hear them. To sustain the necessity of the participation of the Office of the Comptroller General is to disregard the systemic nature of the legal system, as it should be recalled that before 1996, objection to the tender document and appeal before the Office of the Comptroller General were not recognized for processes other than the public tender, and as stated, in any case, it is understood that award decisions are subject to review, but such an act is governed by the Public Administration Law (Ley de Administración Pública) and its formalities. The Procuraduría also points out that the alleged infringement of the control of administrative contracting that has constitutional status is not endangered as the claimant affirms because such activities clearly exceed intervention through the resolution of appeals filed by interested private parties. For example, oversight tasks include audits, investigations of special topics, etc. Thus, no one could ever understand that the procedure established in the discussed Law is less amenable to control because it does not include the appeals of objection to the tender document and objection to the award decision before the Office of the Comptroller General. The truth is that, being matters that affect the public treasury (hacienda pública), these contracts fall squarely within the scope of competencies established for the Office of the Comptroller General, all the above without prejudice to the control or authorization that the Office of the Comptroller General must give on a case-by-case basis for the contracts, a requirement without which they cannot be carried out.

5.- Rodrigo Coredero Fernández and Judith Reyes Castillo, both of legal age, attorneys, and residents of San José, the first married twice and with identity card number one-three hundred twenty-five-nine hundred fifty-seven; the second married and identity card one-eight hundred eighty-six-three hundred thirty-one, appeared representing the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social to answer the granted audience and point out that in their opinion, the challenged Law conforms entirely to the constitutional legal system, since what was always sought was to establish a mechanism for purchasing medicines and raw materials that was more agile, following the Caja's assumption of the country's Hospitals. They add that the challenged law establishes special means of challenge to substitute those established by the Contracting Law. This is seen in the creation of a registry of eligible parties, in the so-called technical specifications (fichas técnicas) that are published in the Gazette (Gaceta); furthermore, all ordinary appeals are admitted as if it were a normal administrative act; the approval of the Office of the Comptroller General is required; there is responsibility of the official in charge; and there is the possibility of complaints to the Office of the Comptroller General. In conclusion, it is pointed out that in reality, there is no injury to the constitutional norms and principles indicated by the claimant.

6.- Rocío Aguilar Montoya, of legal age, married, holding a Licentiate in Administration and Law, resident of San José, identity card number one-five hundred fifty-six-zero forty, in her capacity as Comptroller General of the Republic, was also granted an audience in this matter and manifested herself as follows: she points out that the existence of special contracting regimes is constitutionally acceptable when the contractual activity of a given entity cannot be assimilated, basically due to the existence of certain contractual objects by virtue of their special relevance or sensitivity in the public sphere, and it is important to keep these special conditions in mind that make these rules valid, as is the case with matters related to a national emergency or direct contracting or the system for medicines being discussed. The Comptroller General adds that the rule that has been imposed by the Chamber is quite clear: ordinary rules and solutions for ordinary situations, equally exceptional rules and solutions for exceptional situations. The comptroller body also indicates that it must be clear that the special regime must respect, as pertinent, the constitutional principles of administrative contracting. It must also present elements of judgment that support the reasonableness of the special classification given and the justice of exempting it from the general regime; the foregoing because it is not permissible to create fragmentations. Also, the regime must contain principles of control, transparency, and accountability, and there is a legal reservation in its creation. For the Comptroller General, the regime for the acquisition of medicines satisfactorily meets all the above parameters, and it should be added, nevertheless, that it is a special regime, insofar as it is not the ordinary one; the truth is that it must comply with a good number of rules regarding its object, rules, deadlines, and responsibilities. For this reason, we are not facing a direct invitation procedure (citación directa) but a true competitive bidding procedure, exceptional and not ordinary insofar as it is not part of the general Law, that is, a particular modality of tender applied to the acquisition of certain highly and especially sensitive medicines for health and human life, but which essentially protects and covers the constitutional principles applicable to the matter, such as free competition and participation, as well as equal treatment. The issue of the control of procedures deserves separate mention, and regarding them, the Office of the Comptroller General understands that what must be carried out is a countersignature (refrendo) procedure insofar as an examination is made of the adjustment of the processed procedure to the legal system as a whole and in particular to the legal rules applicable to such competitive bidding processes. It is pointed out by the comptroller body that the claimant complains about the impossibility of filing appeals before the Office of the Comptroller General in this case, but it turns out that if, as he himself points out, it is a special regime, then it makes no sense for him to request equalization in the appeals regime. If what is proposed were granted, the same rules would have to be applied without attending to the fact that the procedure is ordinary or special. In particular, it is indicated, regarding prior control, this exists in ordinary procedures in a broad manner (public tender) or in a more restricted manner (registered supplier tender or restricted tender). However, in those exceptional cases recognized by the legal system, there may be an attenuation of many principles that govern contracting, or even the non-application of them. Precisely in the case of medicines, we are facing an attenuation of principles by reason of and in attention to the specialty and particularity of the object, which is absolutely clear for the Office of the Comptroller General. Finally, it is pointed out that it is not true that through the exclusion of means of challenge, the exercise of control by the Office of the Comptroller General is limited, since the supervisory faculties go far beyond such acts, such as the appeal of objection to the tender document or the appeal of the final decision. Regarding the point of the reasonableness of the norms, it should be said that the claimant's entire argument is based not on the legal design but on the manner in which it has been put into execution by the entity, so the question is not that the system is unreasonable in itself, but that the effects of its application, due to defects of the entity, are supposedly excessively detached from those sought by the legislator.

7.- The edicts referred to in the second paragraph of Article 81 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction were published in numbers 118, 119, and 120 of the Judicial Bulletin, on the seventeenth, eighteenth, and twenty-first of June of two thousand four (folio 82).

8.- The hearing indicated in Articles 10 and 85 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction is dispensed with, based on the power granted to the Chamber by Article 9 ibidem, as this resolution is considered sufficiently grounded in evident principles and norms, as well as in the case law of this Court.

9.- The prescriptions of law have been observed in the proceedings.

Drafted by Justice Mora Mora; and,

Considering:

I.- On admissibility. This action of unconstitutionality is based on an amparo appeal that, under number 03-10187-0007-CO, was admitted by the Chamber and within which the claimant was granted a deadline to file an action of unconstitutionality against the challenged norms. Therefore, and in view of the fact that the other established formal requirements have been met, it is appropriate to hear the claim on its merits as follows.

II.- Object of the challenge. As can be deduced from the filing document, the action is directed against Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, according to the text added by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eight, nineteen eighty-three, but only insofar as it allows purchases of medicines with the sole authorization of the Contraloría General de la República, which is considered to affect the constitutional competencies of the said comptroller body in its task of supervising the Public Treasury (Hacienda Pública). This legal rule contained in the questioned norm violates, as alleged, the right of access to administrative justice, the constitutionally established powers of intervention of the Contraloría General de la República, and the constitutional principle of control of procedures, in addition to the principle of reasonableness.

III.- On the merits. As noted above, this action of unconstitutionality does not dispute the existence of a special contracting regime legislatively established so that the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (hereinafter the "Caja") may acquire certain categories of goods it needs to fulfill its function. The problem of constitutionality arises for the claimant from the way the legislator has regulated such a special system at the specific point of the possibilities of intervention of the Contraloría General de la República, in its capacity as supervisory body of administrative contracting, and specifically regarding the appeal aspect, which, he points out, is simply non-existent. The claimant relies on jurisprudential citations from this constitutional review body (998-98, 5947-98, and 2832-98, among others) from which he extracts the legal necessity that in the legislative design of all and any contracting system, mechanisms must be contemplated - to comply with the constitutionally established principles on the matter through case law - that allow the Contraloría General de la República a controlling intervention through the appeals channel in direct relation to the amount of the transaction, both in accordance with its constitutional functions and because this proves to be a required realization of the right of challenge that citizens must have in this area. For their part, both the Procuraduría General and the Contraloría General de la República, as well as the Caja in its capacity as counterpart, oppose the claim and point out that the legislator has acted within the framework of its competencies when designing the special contracting system under discussion. They do acknowledge a drastic reduction in the appeals phase before the Office of the Comptroller General and, for that same reason, a reduction of its intervention in the contracting processes, but they note that this is legally appropriate and necessary for the satisfaction of the specific public interest involved. Along this line of argument, they affirm that it cannot be overlooked that the special contracting regime under discussion is for the purchase of medicines included in the national formulary and other adjuncts closely related to people's health, such that what is at stake is the right to life of the inhabitants of the Republic, which, in the judgment of the cited bodies, constitutes sufficient justification, at the constitutional level, for the legislator to have opted, as he did, for the special contracting design that he finally established in the challenged regulation, which, even though it undeniably reduces the means of appeal as indicated, does not thereby injure the constitutional principles cited by the claimant, given that the legal system as a whole provides different but sufficient mechanisms to comply with the essence of the principle of control and transparency that is enshrined in our Political Constitution.

IV.- It is in ruling number 998-98 of eleven hours thirty on the sixteenth of February of nineteen ninety-eight that this Chamber addressed the task of systematizing the ideas and principles of constitutional status that it had been recognizing over the years regarding administrative contracting. In relation to the matter at hand, the following was stated therein:

"VI. THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTING. (...) By virtue of the foregoing, it must be understood that all the constitutional principles and parameters governing the State's contractual activity derive from Article 182 of the Political Constitution. Some of these principles that guide and regulate the tender are: (...) and 10.- control of procedures, a principle by which all tasks of administrative contracting are subject to control and supervision for the sake of verifying, at least, the correct use of public funds. Thus, the verification of at least the following controls is necessary throughout the administrative contracting procedure: legal control, to verify that no entity or official performs any act or assumes conduct that violates the Law, carried out by verifying the prior existence of economic resources; accounting control, which is the examination or judgment of the accounts of the departments and officials responsible for administering State funds and assets, derived from the constant and systematic review of all operations affecting the budget credits approved by the Legislative Assembly or the Office of the Comptroller General, so that expenditures have their financial backing and conform to the established classification, carried out by the budget and accounting control offices of each contracting entity or institution; financial control, which consists of supervising the correct collection of revenues and the legality of public expenditure, under the purview of the institutions' own financial offices, the National Treasury, the Budget Office, and the Contraloría General de la República; and economic or results control, which is carried out on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management, that is, on the results of such management, the determination of the fulfillment of established goals, and the optimal use of resources, a control that is carried out very partially by the institutions and has not been conceived as an effective instrument for managerial and institutional development. These principles have recognition both at the doctrinal and jurisprudential level, and have already been developed by this Court on repeated occasions and prior to this ruling, as follows: (...)" And later it concludes:

"VIII.- INITIAL GENERAL CONCLUSION. Based on the foregoing considerations, it is evident, in the judgment of this Chamber, that the principles derived from Article 182 of the Political Constitution, and as such, of constitutional status, have been widely and repeatedly confirmed by its own case law. But furthermore, that in that same direction, traditionally, since it began functioning, the Contraloría General de la República itself has protected them in the exercise of its constitutional functions, according to its own administrative precedents. By reason of what has been affirmed, it is concluded that such has been the development, both by administrative and judicial case law, since the enactment of our Constitution in the year nineteen forty-nine, of the subject of administrative contracting. But the foregoing does not exclude a brief consideration of the motivation of the Law that is examined in these consolidated actions, regarding the so-called principle of State efficiency in the administration of public matters: the Chamber admits, as is logical to infer from the different manifestations that have been made in the present case, that it is legislative policy to define the scope of administrative contracting systems, as a consequence derived from the text of the already discussed Article 182 of the Political Constitution, in the sense that administrative contracting must be carried out by means of tender 'in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount'. But this does not preclude this Court, by reason of its essential function of being the guardian of the principle of constitutional supremacy, from having to examine the reasonableness and proportionality of the norms, to determine if they conform to the essential principles already indicated. And as an initial general conclusion, which emanates from the examination of the principles, doctrine, and case law that have been set forth in the previous considering clauses, it can only be affirmed that the administrative contracting system is made up, on the one hand, of the constitutional principles that emanate from Article 182 of the Constitution itself, and on the other hand, as a complement, by the control system exercised directly by the constitutional body responsible for the supervision and oversight of the Public Treasury, being the Contraloría General de la República, which is established as a guarantee of the correct use of public funds for the sake of satisfying the public interest. It is in light of these norms and principles that the reasonableness and proportionality of the challenged regulation, referring to the administrative contracting contained in the challenged Law and Regulations, is analyzed." (...)

"XIX.- THE CHALLENGE TO ARTICLE 84 OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTING LAW (LEY DE CONTRATACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA). The claimants challenge Article 84 of the Administrative Contracting Law, insofar as it establishes very high amounts for the appeal before the Contraloría General de la República to proceed, by which the public tender is marginalized and completely destroyed, in violation of Article 182 of the Constitution. In relation to this challenge, first of all, it must be recalled that, precisely from the conception of the material constitutional norm of Article 182 of the Constitution, the principles governing administrative contracting derive, and consequently, they are of mandatory compliance; the control exercised directly by the Contraloría General de la República takes on special importance. Indeed, from the point of view of the right of appeal recognized to every participant in a public administrative contracting competitive bidding process, the challenged provision is the one that establishes the limits that mark the milestone from which the award can be appealed before the Contraloría General de la República and does so based on the amounts of the contracts. Since that right (to challenge) is subject to the amounts that were established in Article 27 of the same Law, Article 84 loses its legal basis, insofar as, as was analyzed in Considering Clause XIII of this ruling, Article 27 of the Law, which was its legal basis, is unconstitutional, and therefore this other norm is clearly and manifestly unconstitutional. And it is so because, in a surreptitious manner, what is sought is to ignore the public policy principle derived from Article 182 of the Constitution, that all contracting carried out by the State must be verified by tender, with all its consequences and with observance of all its principles, for which purpose a limitation is resorted to that, due to its exaggerated amounts, is disproportionate and unreasonable." Concerning the right to appeal itself, it must be noted that this Chamber has previously indicated that the principles informing due process are also mandatorily applicable in administrative proceedings; thus, in judgment number 2130-94, at fourteen hours fifty-seven minutes on May third, nineteen ninety-four, it stated:

“[…] the petitioner's allegations are unfounded. The national legal system establishes a broad range of fundamental procedural guarantees and principles, fully applicable not only in the judicial sphere, but also in every administrative proceeding, such that their non-observance causes absolute nullity, due to unconstitutionality, of everything acted upon, especially in cases like the present one, where the Administration is legally empowered to eliminate an act creating subjective rights —in this case a concession— issued in favor of the individual. Said principles and guarantees derive, generally, from Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution, and more specifically from the General Law of Public Administration, whose procedural principles, due to the special nature of the matter they regulate, are mandatory. Among them, according to judgment number 15-90 at sixteen hours forty-five minutes on January fifth, nineteen ninety of this Chamber, are:

«... a) Notification to the interested party of the nature and purposes of the proceeding; b) right to be heard, and opportunity for the interested party to present arguments and produce the evidence deemed pertinent; c) opportunity for the individual to prepare their allegation, which necessarily includes access to information and administrative records linked to the matter at hand; ch) right of the individual to be represented and advised by lawyers, technicians, and other qualified persons; d) adequate notification of the decision issued by the Administration and the grounds on which it is based; and e) right of the interested party to appeal the decision rendered...»”; a criterion that has been reiterated by the case law of this Chamber (in this same sense, see judgment number 2360-94 at fifteen hours six minutes on May seventeenth, nineteen ninety-four). Now, since appealing adverse administrative acts is a fundamental right, it is possible, and moreover necessary, to regulate the manner in which this right must be exercised, as indicated in judgment number 1420-91 at nine hours on July twenty-fourth, nineteen ninety-one:

“In effect, the principle of reasonableness implies that the State may limit or restrict the abusive exercise of the right, but must do so in such a way that the legal rule conforms in all its elements, such as the motive and the purpose pursued, with the objective meaning contemplated in the Constitution.” Note that what has been admitted is only the regulation of this right, such that it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right impossible or nugatory; and in this case, one must not forget that exhaustion of the administrative channel is an admissibility requirement for accessing the judicial channel, specifically the administrative litigation channel. By reason of the foregoing, it is plausible to conclude that the celerity of administrative contracting procedures must rely on means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and undeniabled justice, such that the appeal possibilities of participants in contests promoted by the Administration cannot be inhibited in an excessive or irrational manner. (...) In this sense, it must not be forgotten that the control of bidding procedures constitutes an essential principle of administrative contracting, precisely for the sake of protecting and guaranteeing the public interest concerning the verification and oversight of the correct use of public funds. The foregoing principle was confirmed by this Chamber in judgment number 2514-93 at nine hours six minutes on June fourth, nineteen ninety-three, in which it considered that the power granted to the administration to declare contests void is not unconstitutional, but the denial of appeals against adjudicatory resolutions of public tenders would be, in the following terms:

“Pursuant to Article 9 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, this petition must be rejected on the merits, since Article 131 of the Regulations on Administrative Contracting permits the ex officio revocation or nullity of the act declaring a contest void, but does not grant any appeal before non-jurisdictional bodies to the potentially affected parties, a regulation that per se does not infringe the fundamental principles of due process nor those informing free competition and transparency inherent in administrative contracting, for it could not be asserted that participants in a tender have a fundamental right that it not be declared void, or that the law provide an appeal within the administrative venue to challenge that declaration, and in any event, as will be stated, the legal system provides a legal remedy to challenge the final decision rendered in «any State tender»; declaring it void entails the exercise of a discretionary power of the tendering body that this Chamber could not substitute. It must be established that the denial of appeals against resolutions awarding a public tender would indeed be grounds for amparo, because it would violate due process since, once a tender is awarded—unlike the act declaring it void—it can be affirmed that the participants have a fundamental right that the point be examined by the Comptroller General of the Republic, because the legal transaction has been concluded with economic significance for the Administration and for the participants, whereas the declaration of emptiness does not preclude the contest from being summoned again.” V.- On the basis of such principles, this court had the opportunity to rule even more specifically regarding the fundamental right to appeals in this matter and the participation of the Comptroller's Office therein, when it declared a norm unconstitutional because it established excessively high economic parameters that made the right to appeal nugatory in a good number of contracts and because it transferred the competence to hear potential appeals to another body distinct from the Comptroller General of the Republic. Thus, it was set forth:

"VII.- (...) On that occasion [judgment number 998-98 recently cited] it reiterated that the principles informing due process are also mandatorily applicable in administrative proceedings, therefore it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right nugatory; such that the celerity of administrative contracting procedures must rely on means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and undeniabled justice, such that the appeal possibilities of participants in contests promoted by the Administration cannot be inhibited in an excessive or irrational manner. In consideration of the foregoing, the first unconstitutionality of this paragraph is concluded, since by having established such high thresholds for the applicability of public tender, the first paragraph of Article 171 of the Central Bank Law, previously declared unconstitutional, makes access to the appeal remedy difficult or impossible. The second unconstitutionality of this provision must be considered in light of what was stated in the preceding recital (VI.), regarding the functions and competencies proper to the Comptroller General of the Republic; such that the hearing of appeals with the degree of improper hierarchical superior of the adjudication acts agreed upon by the banks of the national banking system form part of the oversight powers exercised by the Comptroller's Office in the vigilance of the public treasury, in accordance with constitutional norms and principles, which the ordinary legislator may neither limit nor denature.(...)" (judgment 1998-05947 at fourteen hours thirty-two minutes on August nineteenth, nineteen ninety-eight.)

The foregoing thesis, however, was delimited in its broad scope by the Chamber itself when analyzing the specific issue of the difference in remedial regimes and the participation of the Comptroller General of the Republic in registration-based and restricted tenders. On that occasion, the following was set forth:

"III.- Although these norms were not analyzed in a particularized manner in judgment number 0998-98, at eleven hours thirty minutes on February sixteenth of this year, the fact is that it established a series of principles, specifically regarding the characteristics that restricted and registration-based tenders provided in the Law of Administrative Contracting may have, which are fundamental to settle the question.- Specifically, the following was set forth (..)

IV.- Based on the principles established in the transcribed judgment [referring to judgment number 998-98 cited above] it is concluded that the challenged norms do not violate Articles 39, 41, and 183 of the Political Constitution.- According to what the law provides, after the variations operated by the Chamber's judgment just cited, restricted tender and registration-based tender are contracting modalities corresponding to what was previously known as 'private tender', therefore, under such conditions, it is constitutionally admissible that the challenging regime differ from that defined for public tender, precisely because these are sufficiently regulated special situations, in which, according to the constitutional doctrine set forth in the preceding recitals, the participation of the Comptroller General of the Republic may be tempered, especially considering the extensive regulation that such tendering processes (restricted tender and registration-based tender) currently have compared to their predecessor, the private tender.- As a conclusion, the alleged infringement of the right of access to administrative justice does not exist, because the possibility of review of the actions taken exists in the discussed norms, and neither is the control regime granted by Article 183 to the Comptroller General of the Republic disrespected." Finally, it is important to note that in judgment number 13910-2005 at fifteen hours four minutes on October eleventh, two thousand five, the Chamber confirmed all the ideas previously set forth and determined, on one hand, the validity of the attenuation of the principles of administrative contracting in certain processes of the ordinary contracting system (restricted tender and registration-based tender), and defined, on the other hand, the necessity and constitutional validity of so-called direct contracting as a necessary exception to complete the administrative contracting system in the case of situations where the use of ordinary tendering means of any kind would jeopardize the achievement of the public purpose pursued.

VI.- The petitioner's thesis in this case is essentially based on the described precedents, and maintains that the special contracting procedure upon which this action turns prevents individuals from questioning acts such as the tender specifications or the award decision before the Comptroller's Office, without making any distinction as to the value of the transaction, thereby—just as in the described precedents—unreasonably and clearly unconstitutionally limiting the right to appeal adverse decisions which, in public tenders—that is, those possessing a certain value and an extensive process—has been demanded by the Chamber. The public entities appearing in this process affirm that since it is constitutionally permissible to attenuate the principles of administrative contracting in certain cases, the legislator has not acted wrongly in designing, within the discussed regulatory framework, a particular contracting system characterized—in what concerns us here—by a diminution of appellate guarantees, if such legislative action of attenuation is based on the need to protect a good of constitutional rank, such as the health of persons. However, for the Chamber, this line of reasoning contradicts Article 182 of the Constitution, which, as has been said, serves as the foundation for the development of the principles of the administrative contracting system, for in said provision, tender is embraced as the normal means of contracting "in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount," whereby the Constituent Assembly opts for the amount as the discriminating parameter in the design of various types of administrative contracting processes, which, depending on the amount, may have diverse regulations, but always respecting the right of the Constitution in its essence. Thus, with the exception of the amount, our constitutional text does not expressly recognize any other parameter for the application of an attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to administrative contracting.

VII.- It could be understood, nonetheless, that even if it is not expressly contemplated in the constitutional text, it is legally necessary to recognize a constitutional authorization, not express but tacitly established, to distinguish tendering mechanisms with different degrees of requirements, insofar as, as is argued, certain public purposes are incompatible with normal contracting processes. For this body, that is precisely what occurred with a special type of administrative contracting process called direct contracting, regarding the nature of which was set forth in the cited judgment 13910-05, precisely in the sense that, although it is not encompassed in Article 182 of the Constitution, it is a necessary instrument to attend to certain contracting needs that, due to their special characteristics, cannot be subjected to ordinary tendering processes (specifically public tender, registration-based tender, and restricted tender.). However, for the Chamber, this is also not the case with the challenged regulatory framework for two fundamental reasons: the first, of a procedural nature, consists of noting that the design of the contracting system questioned in this action is basically mounted on the concept of a contest or tender. Briefly, it is observed that: a) there exists a pre-established set or catalog of technical specifications that fully describe the conditions and determining elements of the products that will at some point be tendered. This catalog is updated and reviewed assiduously for its improvement, as the CCSS (Caja) reports, so that future participants and any interested party can know in advance, precisely, the characteristics of the object of the contest; b) the body in charge of contracting also has a registry in which interested suppliers have previously been inscribed according to each product and its technical specification, and it is based on such Registry that the call to contest is made, in which, as all entities indicate, it must be understood as required that a summons will be issued to all registered suppliers; c) the offers presented are evaluated on an equal footing, and the choice must be made according to conditions of quality and price, and; d) the actions within this regime have—as also expressed by the three entities—a variety of challenging means, and specifically, the CCSS (Caja) affirms that the supplier registry, the technical specification, and the award act, which can be challenged by the private party before the CCSS (Caja) as the active administration, can be discussed and challenged through the impugnatory means contained in the General Law of Public Administration. All of the foregoing establishes for the Chamber that, as explained, the purchase of goods through the challenged mechanism clearly adheres to a contest or—in the words of our Constituent Assembly—a tender, and not a direct contracting, which, as indicated, stems precisely from the opposite notion, that is, the impossibility or high undesirability of employing ordinary tendering means for the achievement of the public purpose. The second reason is precisely closely related to the characteristics of the public purpose pursued with this contracting system, and which both the public entities and the Chamber itself understand is the appropriate attention to the health of the persons served by the CCSS (Caja), an interest that the institutions defending the norm do not demonstrate is incompatible per se and in every case with the characteristics of tendering procedures, if this Court rather understands that it is perfectly possible, in a good number of cases, for the normal means of contracting, used appropriately and with due foresight, to produce the inventory of medications and other medical material adequate to attend to the normal needs of the entity in that aspect. Seen from this perspective, the truth is that the needs for medications and products indicated in the discussed law, for the health care of persons by an institution like the CCSS (Caja), which is dedicated to that task, are, as a general rule, predictable, starting from a basis of minimal organization and record-keeping of statistics and events, while the attention to inevitable unforeseen events and other emergent situations can clearly be attended to precisely through the direct contracting mechanisms, legally existing in the legal system and created for that specific purpose. In this latter sense, it is important to recall the Chamber's case law on the modulation of public powers arising from emergency situations. In this regard, when analyzing Articles 2 and 80 of the Law of Administrative Contracting, it was stated that:

“… But furthermore, it is opportune to point out that the idea of a treatment different from the ordinary in the face of exceptional situations has nothing novel or strange about it and that it appears even encompassed (although for other assumptions) in our Political Constitution, which in numeral 180 states that:

“Article 180.- The ordinary budget and the extraordinary ones constitute the limit of action of the Public Powers for the use and disposition of State resources, and may only be modified by laws initiated by the Executive Power.

Any modification bill involving an increase or creation of expenses must be subject to the provisions of the foregoing article.

However, when the Assembly is in recess, the Executive Power may vary the destination of an authorized item, or open additional credits, but only to satisfy urgent or unforeseen needs in cases of war, internal commotion, or public calamity. In such cases, the Comptroller's Office may not deny its approval to the ordered expenses, and the respective decree will entail summoning the Legislative Assembly to extraordinary sessions for its cognizance.” It would then involve clearly exceptional situations that judgment number 3410-1992 at fourteen hours forty-five minutes on November tenth, nineteen ninety-two, had occasion to define as:

“…manifestations of what is known in Public Law doctrine as 'state of necessity and urgency,' by virtue of the principle 'salus populi suprema lex est,' understanding that the weaker legal good (the preservation of the normal order of legislative competencies) must yield to the stronger legal good (the preservation of the legal and social order, which, on occasions, does not permit waiting for a law to be processed and approved); and in Criminal Law, as 'state of necessity,' that is, 'a situation of danger for a legal good, which can only be saved through the violation of another legal good.' And this is the same sense of the text of Article 180 of the Constitution.” In this manner, neither the regulation nor the law are novel in recognizing and leaving open the possibility of exempting ordinary contracting procedures in the face of groups of situations that by their condition:

“…must be understood within the most classic definition of force majeure or, at most, of fortuitous event, that is, events that come from nature, such as earthquakes and floods, or from the action of man, such as popular tumults, invasions and war, or from the human condition itself, such as epidemics, events that are surprising and unforeseeable, or although foreseeable, unavoidable; (…) of abnormal situations that cannot be controlled, managed, or dominated with the ordinary measures available to the Government. (Judgment 3410-1992) To this, it would be appropriate to add now that in Law number 8511 of May sixteenth, two thousand six, while it eliminated the urgency from Article 2 just cited, it instead added an Article 2 bis that, in the pertinent part, states:

“Article 2 bis Authorizations. The following assumptions authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic are excluded from the contest procedures established in this Law:

(…)

• c)Other activities or specific cases in which sufficient reasons are accredited to consider that it is the only way to achieve the adequate satisfaction of the general interest or to avoid damages or injuries to public interests” The foregoing, without prejudice to the fact that, as also stated, Article 80 of the cited Law expressly contemplates, for cases of urgency, the lifting of some or all of the formalities of administrative contracting. In this way, it is clear that the protection of health does not always entail that element of urgency, haste, or unforeseen situation that the appearing public entities seem to appreciate; it is also clear that there exists sufficient constitutional and legal support to sustain the relief of contracting procedures in the attention to urgencies and emergencies that so warrant, therefore the thesis that it is necessary to recognize the existence in this case of another constitutional authorization and justification for an attenuation of the constitutional principles of control of administrative contracting is not admissible for this Chamber.

VIII.A different line of argumentation to analyze the constitutionality of the challenged regulatory framework is implicit in the briefs of the aforementioned institutions and consists of understanding that the challenged regulatory framework reflects the balancing that the legislator carried out between two constitutional principles, namely, on one hand, the right to life and public health, and on the other, the principles and values that encompass the right to challenge harmful acts enjoyed by the individual, as well as those that impose the existence of means of control over public actions, particularly those related to the public treasury and attributed in our constitutional environment to the Comptroller General of the Republic. In this specific case, this would involve a discussion regarding the apparent interference and superposition between the spheres and scopes of the right to life and public health, which obligate the State, and in this case the Legislative Power, to take the measures necessary and appropriate to ensure it is fulfilled in favor of the citizens, vis-à-vis the principles—developed essentially by the case law of this Chamber—that oblige the authorities and—again—specifically the legislator, to take the pertinent and necessary measures so that interested citizens have the possibility of exercising control over the actions of public bodies, in relation to contracts made with public funds, this control being primarily exercised through the intervention as an improper hierarchical superior by the Comptroller General of the Republic. On this point, the Chamber considers that the contradiction is more apparent than real: as indicated in the preceding recital, legally and within the framework of the law of the Constitution, a delimitation of fields of action is plausible that allows for both sets of principles (health, on one hand, and administrative contracting, on the other) to develop broadly without interference. In particular, the Chamber considers that the administrative contracting system, seen in its totality and with the application of its principles as they are delineated, permits and makes possible, without interference, an appropriate protection of the right to health and the life of citizens, without this requiring or implying a diminution or attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to administrative contracting, as the intervening institutions indeed maintain, and as is effectively regulated in the discussed normative framework. It will suffice for this purpose to apply the delimitation and the criteria that this Chamber has been defining over time so that, as the Comptroller's Office indicates, "...ordinary solutions are applied to ordinary situations and extraordinary solutions to extraordinary situations...", it being the case that for this Tribunal, the regulatory framework errs in establishing, with respect to the remedial and control system, a treatment of an extraordinary situation for contracting processes that lack such a condition and that—as far as the remedial and control system by the Comptroller's Office is concerned—perfectly withstand compliance with the provisions of the ordinary contracting system, with its rules and criteria defined according to the amount and adhering to the Law of the Constitution.

XIX.Conclusion and shaping.- From all of the foregoing, it is concluded that the challenged law is effectively unconstitutional, but solely and exclusively with respect to the limitation of the remedial regime and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic established in the special contracting procedure contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social), added by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-three. The unconstitutionality originates in the phrase "with the sole authorization of the Comptroller General of the Republic" ("con la sola autorización de la Contraloría General de la República") of the cited Article, which the Chamber considers contains an infraction of the principles of administrative contracting because, although the health of persons is at stake in the matter subject to contracting through this special procedure, that fact alone does not make it constitutionally admissible, speaking, that always and in every case, the contracts must be carried out with the exclusion of the control means that are normally established, according to the amount, for the contracts made by state institutions. To the contrary, the Chamber understands that the health of persons can be served equally well without harming other constitutional rights, simply by eliminating the phrase indicated above, such that it is understood that the challenged regulatory framework merely substitutes the ordinary system,

in that it establishes a concrete and different procedure, but which, with respect to the remedial aspects and the intervention of the Comptroller's Office, must adhere to what is established in the ordinary contracting system, all according to the value of the transaction. With the foregoing, it must also be understood that the possibility remains open for the CCSS (Caja) to resort to direct contracting procedures in the established exception scenarios and with respect for the fixed procedures, so that through that channel, extraordinary situations that threaten to harm the health of persons and—demonstrably—cannot be resolved through the application of ordinary general or special procedures may be covered. By virtue of the provisions of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, this judgment has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of entry into force of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. However, in accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, the effects are shaped in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect contracts formalized and concluded, nor those in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this judgment in the Judicial Bulletin.

Given the particular nature of the declaration of unconstitutionality established here, which seeks to remedy an act of exclusion established unconstitutionally, the proper course is to link the special procedure established in Articles 71 and 72 of the challenged Law with the provisions of the Law on Administrative Procurement (Ley de la Contratación Administrativa), number 7494, as amended by Law number 7612, and with what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of sixteen hours thirty minutes on February sixteenth of the current year, all of this as indicated with exclusive reference to the recourse and intervention regime of the Contraloría General de la República, established therein, according to the amount of the transaction. Judges Armijo Sancho and Cruz Castro dissent and declare the action without merit based on the reasons they set forth.

XX. Judges Vargas and Cruz dissent and declare the action without merit

Por tanto

The action is declared with merit, and consequently, the phrase "se podrán realizar con la sola autorización de la Contraloría General de la República" contained in Article 72 of the Constituent Law of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, added by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred eighty-three, is annulled as unconstitutional. This judgment has declaratory and retroactive effects to the effective date of the annulled provision, without prejudice to good faith acquired rights. In accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect contracts formalized and concluded, nor those in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this judgment in the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial). By virtue of the ordered declaration, and regarding the recourse and intervention regime of the Contraloría General de la República, the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social must apply the provisions of the Law on Administrative Procurement (Ley de la Contratación Administrativa), number 7494, as amended by Law number 7612, and what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of sixteen hours thirty minutes on February sixteenth of the current year, as applicable according to the amount of the transaction. Let this pronouncement be recorded in the Official Gazette La Gaceta and published in full in the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial). Let this pronouncement be communicated to the Legislative and Executive Branches, the Contraloría General de la República, and the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social. Notify.

Ana Virginia Calzada M.

Acting President Luis Paulino Mora M. Adrián Vargas B.

Gilbert Armijo S. Ernesto Jinesta L.

Fernando Cruz C. Jorge Araya G.

The constitutional problem arises for the plaintiff from the way in which the legislator has regulated such special system at the specific point of the possibilities of intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), in its capacity as oversight body of Administrative Procurement (Contratación administrativa), and specifically regarding the appeals aspect which, as indicated, is simply non-existent. The plaintiff relies on jurisprudential citations from this constitutional review body (998-98, 5947-98 and 2832-98 among others) from which he extracts the legal necessity that in the legislative design of all and any procurement systems, mechanisms must be contemplated – to comply with the constitutional principles in this matter established jurisprudentially – that allow the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic a controlling intervention through the appeals channel in direct relation to the amount of the transaction, both in adherence to its constitutional functions, and because this proves to be a required realization of the right of challenge that citizens must have in this matter. For their part, both the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría) and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, as well as the Caja in its capacity as counterpart, oppose the claim and indicate that the legislator has acted within the framework of its powers when designing the special procurement system under discussion. They do recognize a drastic reduction in the appeals phase before the Office of the Comptroller and therefore a reduction of its intervention in procurement processes, but they point out that this is legally appropriate and necessary for the satisfaction of the specific public interest involved. In this line of argument, they affirm that one cannot lose sight of the fact that the special procurement regime under discussion is for the purchase of medications included in the national formulary and other supplies closely related to the health of individuals, so that what is at stake is the right to life of the inhabitants of the Republic, which in the judgment of the cited bodies constitutes sufficient justification, at the constitutional level, for the legislator to have opted, as it did, for the special procurement design that it ultimately established in the challenged regulations, which even though it undeniably reduces the means of appeal as indicated, does not thereby injure the constitutional principles cited by the plaintiff, given that the legal system as a whole provides different but sufficient mechanisms to comply with the essence of the principle of control and transparency that is enshrined in our Political Constitution (Constitución Política).

**IV.-** It is in judgment number 998-98 of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of nineteen ninety-eight that this Chamber takes on the task of systematizing the ideas and principles of constitutional rank that it had been recognizing over the years in matters of administrative procurement. In relation to the topic at hand, the following was stated therein:

"VI. THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCUREMENT. (...) By virtue of the foregoing, it must be understood that from Article 182 of the Political Constitution are derived **all** the constitutional principles and parameters that govern the contractual activity of the State. Some of these principles that guide and regulate the public tender (licitación) are: **(...)** and **10.- <u>of the control of procedures</u>**, a principle by which all tasks of administrative procurement are subject to control and oversight for the sake of verification, at least, of the correct utilization of public funds. Thus, throughout the entire administrative procurement procedure, the verification of the following controls is necessary, at a minimum: **the legal control**, to verify that no entity or official performs any act or assumes conducts that transgress the Law, carried out through the verification of the prior existence of economic resources; **the accounting control**, which is the examination or judgment of the accounts of the dependencies and of the officials who are in charge of the administration of State funds and assets, which derives from the constant and systematic review of all operations that affect the budget appropriations approved by the Legislative Assembly or the Office of the Comptroller, so that expenditures have their financial backing and conform to the established classification, carried out by the budget and accounting control offices of each contracting entity or institution; **the financial control**, which consists of the oversight of the correct perception of income and the legality of public expenditure, within the competence of the institutions' own financial offices, the National Treasury (Tesorería Nacional), the Budget Office (Oficina de Presupuesto), and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic; and **the economic or results control**, which is carried out on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management, that is, on the results of said management, the determination of the fulfillment of established goals and the optimal use of resources, a control that is carried out very partially by the institutions and has not been conceived as an effective instrument for managerial and institutional development. These principles are recognized both at the doctrinal and jurisprudential level, and have already been developed by this Court on repeated occasions and prior to this judgment, in the following manner: (...)" And later concludes:

"VIII.- INITIAL GENERAL CONCLUSION. Based on the foregoing considerations, it is evident, in the judgment of this Chamber, that the principles derived from Article 182 of the Political Constitution, and as such, of constitutional rank, have been broadly and repeatedly confirmed by its own jurisprudence. But also, that in that same direction, traditionally, since it began its functions, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic itself has protected them in the exercise of its constitutional functions, according to its own administrative precedents. By reason of what has been affirmed, it is concluded that the development, both by administrative and judicial jurisprudence, of the topic of administrative procurement has been in that sense since the promulgation of our Fundamental Charter in the year nineteen forty-nine. But the foregoing does not exclude a brief consideration regarding the motivation of the Law being examined in these accumulated actions, regarding the so-called principle of State efficiency in the administration of public matters: the Chamber admits, as is logical to infer from the various manifestations that have occurred in the present case, that it is legislative policy to define the scope of administrative procurement systems, as a consequence derived from the text of Article 182 of the Political Constitution already commented on, in the sense that administrative procurement must be done by means of public tender **"in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount."** But this does not exclude that this Court, by reason of its essential function of being the custodian of the principle of constitutional supremacy, must examine the reasonableness and proportionality of the norms, to determine if they are in conformity with the essential principles already indicated. And as an initial general conclusion, which emanates from the examination of the principles, doctrine, and jurisprudence that have been set forth in the preceding consideranda, it can only be affirmed that the administrative procurement system is made up, on one hand, by the constitutional principles that emanate from Article 182 of the Constitution itself, and on the other hand, as a complement, by the control system exercised directly by the constitutional body responsible for the oversight and vigilance of the Public Treasury (Hacienda Pública), that is, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, which is established as a guarantee of the correct utilization of public funds for the sake of satisfying the public interest. It is in light of these norms and principles that we proceed to analyze the reasonableness and proportionality of the challenged regulations, referring to the administrative procurement contained in the challenged Law and Regulation" (...)

XIX.- THE CHALLENGE TO ARTICLE 84 OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCUREMENT LAW. The plaintiffs challenge Article 84 of the Administrative Procurement Law, insofar as it establishes extremely high amounts for an appeal before the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic to proceed, thereby completely marginalizing and destroying the public tender, in violation of constitutional Article 182. In relation to this challenge, first of all, it must be remembered that, precisely from the conception of the material constitutional norm of Article 182 of the Fundamental Charter derive the principles that govern administrative procurement, and that consequently, are of mandatory observance, the control exercised directly by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic takes on special importance. Indeed, from the point of view of the right of appeal recognized to every participant in a public administrative procurement competition, the challenged provision is the one that establishes the limits that mark the milestone from which the award can be appealed before the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, and it does so based on the amounts of the contracts. As that right (to challenge) is subject to the amounts that were established in Article 27 of the same Law, Article 84 loses its legal support, since, as was analyzed in Considerando XIII of this judgment, Article 27 of the Law, which was its legal support, is unconstitutional, whereby this other norm is evidently and manifestly unconstitutional. And it is so because, in a surreptitious manner, what is pursued is to ignore the principle of public order derived from constitutional Article 182, that all procurement concluded by the State must be verified through public tender, with all its consequences and with observance of all its principles, for which purpose a limitation is resorted to that, due to its exaggerated amounts, is disproportionate and unreasonable. With respect to the right to appeal properly, it must be indicated that this Chamber has previously pointed out that the principles informing due process are also of mandatory application in administrative procedures; thus, in judgment number 2130-94, of fourteen hours fifty-seven minutes on the third of May of nineteen ninety-four, it stated:

"[...] *the plaintiff's arguments are unfounded. The national legal system establishes a wide range of guarantees and procedural principles of a fundamental nature, fully applicable not only in the jurisdictional sphere, <u>but also in every administrative procedure</u>, so that their non-observance causes the absolute nullity, due to unconstitutionality, of everything acted upon, especially in cases like the present one, where the Administration is empowered by law to eliminate an act creating subjective rights –in this case a concession– issued in favor of the administered party. Said principles and guarantees derive, in general, from Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution, and more specifically from the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública), whose procedural principles, due to the special nature of the matter they regulate, are of mandatory observance. Within them, according to judgment number 15-90 of sixteen hours forty-five minutes on the fifth of January of nineteen ninety of this Chamber, are found:* *«... a) Notification to the interested party of the nature and purposes of the procedure; b) right to be heard, and opportunity for the interested party to present arguments and produce evidence he deems pertinent; c) opportunity for the administered party to prepare his allegation, which necessarily includes access to information and administrative records linked to the question at hand; ch) right of the administered party to be represented and advised by lawyers, technicians, and other qualified persons; d) adequate notification of the decision issued by the Administration and of the grounds on which it is based, and e) right of the interested party to appeal the decision issued...»*"; a criterion that has been reiterated by the jurisprudence of this Chamber (in this same sense see judgment number 2360-94 of fifteen hours six minutes on the seventeenth of May of nineteen ninety-four). Now then, since appealing against administrative acts that harm us is a fundamental right, it is possible, and also necessary, to regulate the manner in which this right must be exercised, as was indicated in judgment number 1420-91 of nine hours on the twenty-fourth of July of nineteen ninety-one:

"*Indeed, the principle of reasonableness implies that the State can limit or restrict the abusive exercise of the right, but it must do so in such a way that the legal norm is adapted in all its elements, such as the motive and the purpose it pursues, to the objective sense contemplated in the Constitution.*" Note that what has been admitted is solely the regulation of this right, such that it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right impossible or nugatory; and in this case, it must not be forgotten that exhausting the administrative channel is a requirement of admissibility to be able to access the jurisdictional channel, specifically the contentious-administrative channel. By reason of the foregoing, it is thus feasible to conclude that the speed of administrative procurement procedures must be strengthened by means that do not result in the violation of fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and un-denied justice, such that <u>the appeal possibilities of participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited</u>. (...) In this sense, it must not be forgotten that the control of tender procedures constitutes an essential principle of administrative procurement, precisely for the sake of protecting and guaranteeing the public interest regarding the verification and oversight of the correct utilization of public funds. The foregoing principle was confirmed by this Chamber in judgment number 2514-93 of nine hours six minutes on the fourth of June of nineteen ninety-three, in which it considered that the power granted to the administration to declare competitions void is not unconstitutional, but the denial of appeals against the award resolutions of public tenders would be, in the following terms:

"*Pursuant to Article 9 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), this petition must be rejected on its merits, since Article 131 of the Administrative Procurement Regulation (Reglamento de la Contratación Administrativa) permits the ex officio revocation or nullity of the act declaring a competition void, but does not grant any appeal <u>before non-jurisdictional bodies</u> to the potentially affected parties, a regulation which <u>per se</u> does not infringe the fundamental principles of due process nor those informing free competition and transparency characteristic of administrative procurement, as it could not be affirmed that participants in a public tender have a fundamental right for it not to be declared void, or for the law to provide an appeal <u>in the administrative venue to challenge that declaration</u> and, as will be said, the legal system provides a legal remedy to challenge the final decision made in «every State tender»; declaring it void entails the exercise of a discretionary power of the tendering body that this Chamber could not substitute. It must be established that the denial of appeals against resolutions awarding a public tender would indeed be grounds for constitutional protection (amparo), as it would violate due process since once a tender is awarded –unlike the act declaring it void– it can be affirmed that participants have a fundamental right for the point to be examined by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, because the legal transaction has been concluded with economic significance for the Administration and for the participants, whereas the declaration of voidness does not preclude the competition from being called again.*" **V.-** Based on such principles, this court had the opportunity to rule even more specifically regarding the fundamental right to appeals in this matter and the participation of the Office of the Comptroller therein, when it declared a norm unconstitutional for establishing excessively high economic parameters that made the right to appeal nugatory in a good number of contracts and because the competence to hear the eventual appeals was transferred to another body distinct from the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic. Thus, it was expounded:

"VII.- (...) On that occasion [judgment number 998-98 just cited] it reiterated that the principles informing due process are also of mandatory application in administrative procedures, therefore it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right nugatory; such that the speed of administrative procurement procedures must be strengthened by means that do not result in the violation of fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and un-denied justice, such that the appeal possibilities of participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited. In view of the foregoing, the first unconstitutionality of this paragraph is concluded, since by having established such high thresholds for the applicability of the public tender, the first paragraph of Article 171 of the Law of the Central Bank (Ley del Banco Central), previously declared unconstitutional, makes access to the appeal remedy difficult or impossible. The second unconstitutionality of this provision must be considered in view of what was stated in the previous considerando (VI.), regarding the proper functions and competencies of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic; such that the knowledge of appeals, with a degree of improper hierarchical superiority, against the acts of award agreed upon by the banks of the national banking system, forms part of the oversight powers exercised by the Office of the Comptroller in the vigilance of the public treasury, in accordance with constitutional norms and principles, which the ordinary legislator cannot limit or denaturalize. (...)" (judgment 1998-05947 of fourteen hours thirty-two minutes on the nineteenth of August of nineteen ninety-eight.)

The foregoing thesis, however, was delimited in its broad scope by the Chamber itself when analyzing the specific topic of the difference in the appeal regimes and the participation of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic in tenders by registry and restricted tenders. On that occasion, the following was stated:

"III.- Although these norms were not analyzed in a particularized manner in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of this year, the truth is that it established a series of principles, specifically regarding the characteristics that restricted tenders and tenders by registry contained in the Administrative Procurement Law may have, which are fundamental to settle the question.- Specifically, the following was stated (..)

IV.- Based on the principles established in the transcribed judgment [it refers to judgment number 998-98 cited above], it is concluded that the challenged norms do not violate Articles 39, 41, and 183 of the Political Constitution.- According to what the law provides after the variations effected by the Chamber's judgment just cited, the restricted tender and the tender by registry are procurement modalities that correspond to what was previously known as "private tender," so that, under such conditions, it is constitutionally admissible for the challenge regime to differ from that defined for the public tender because it precisely involves sufficiently regulated special situations, in which, according to the constitutional doctrine set forth in the preceding consideranda, the participation of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic may be tempered, even more so if one takes into account the extensive regulation that such tender processes (restricted tender and tender by registry) currently have compared to their predecessor, the private tender.- In conclusion, the alleged infringement of the right of access to administrative justice does not exist, because the possibility of review of the proceedings exists in the discussed norms, and the control regime that Article 183 grants to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic is not disrespected." Finally, it is important to note that in judgment number 13910-2005 of fifteen hours four minutes on the eleventh of October of two thousand five, the Chamber confirmed all the previously expounded ideas and determined, on one hand, the validity of the attenuation of the principles of administrative procurement in certain processes of the ordinary procurement system (restricted tender and tender by registry) and defined, on the other hand, also the necessity and constitutional validity of the so-called direct procurement as a necessary exception to complete the administrative procurement system in the case of situations in which the use of ordinary tendering means of any kind would jeopardize the achievement of the public purpose pursued.

**VI.-** The thesis of the plaintiff in this case is essentially based on the described precedents, and maintains that the special procurement procedure around which this action revolves prevents the administered parties from challenging before the Office of the Comptroller acts such as the tender specifications (cartel de licitación) or the award, this without making any distinction in the amount of the transaction, whereby – just as in the described precedents – the right to appeal harmful decisions is limited in an unreasonable and clearly unconstitutional manner, which in public tenders – that is, those possessing a certain amount and a broad process – has been demanded by the Chamber. The public entities appearing in this process affirm that since the attenuation of the principles of administrative procurement is constitutionally admissible in certain cases, then the legislator has not acted wrongly when designing in the discussed regulations a particular procurement system, which is characterized – in what is of interest here – by a decrease in appeal guarantees, if such legislative act of attenuation is based on the need to protect a right of constitutional rank such as the health of individuals.

However, for this Chamber, this line of reasoning contradicts Article 182 of the Constitution, which, as has been stated, serves as the basis for developing the principles of the public procurement (contratación administrativa) system, since said provision embraces public bidding (licitación) as the normal means of procurement "in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount," by which the Constituent Assembly opted for the amount as a discriminating parameter in designing various types of public procurement processes that, depending on the amount, may have different regulations, but always respecting in their essence the right of the Constitution. Thus, with the exception of the amount, our constitutional text does not expressly recognize any other parameter for the application of an attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to public procurement.

VII.- It would be understandable, however, that even when not expressly contemplated in the constitutional text, it is legally necessary to recognize a constitutional authorization that is not express, but rather tacitly established, to distinguish bidding mechanisms with different degrees of requirements, insofar as, as is argued, certain public purposes are incompatible with normal procurement processes. For this body, that is precisely what occurred with a special type of public procurement process called direct procurement (contratación directa), on whose nature was expounded in the cited judgment 13910-05, precisely in the sense that, although not included in Article 182 of the Constitution, it is a necessary instrument to attend to certain procurement needs that, due to their special characteristics, cannot be subjected to ordinary bidding processes (specifically public bidding (licitación pública), registry-based bidding (licitación por registro), and restricted bidding (licitación restringida).). However, for the Chamber, this is also not the case for the challenged regulations for two fundamental reasons: the first, of a procedural nature, consists of noting that the design of the procurement system questioned in this action is basically built upon the concept of a tender or public bidding (licitación). Briefly, it is observed that: a) there is a set or pre-established catalog of technical specifications (fichas técnicas) that thoroughly describe the conditions and determining elements of the products that will at some point be put out to bid. This catalog is updated and reviewed frequently for its improvement, as reported by the CCSS, so that future participants and any interested party can know in advance and precisely the characteristics of the object of the tender; b) the body in charge of procurement also has a registry (registro) in which interested suppliers have previously been registered for each product and its technical specification (ficha técnica), and it is based on such a Registry that the call for tenders is made, in which, as all entities indicate, it must be understood as required that a call will be made to all registered suppliers; c) the offers submitted are evaluated on an equal footing and the selection must be made according to quality and price conditions, and; d) the actions within this regime have—as the three entities also state—a variety of means of challenge (medios de impugnación), and the CCSS specifically affirms that the supplier registry (registro de oferentes), the technical specification (ficha técnica), and the act of adjudication may be discussed and challenged, which can be contested by the individual before the CCSS as an active administration, through the means of challenge contained in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de Administración Pública). All of the foregoing establishes for the Chamber that, as explained, the purchase of goods through the challenged mechanism clearly adheres to a tender or—in the words of our constituent—a public bidding (licitación) and not a direct procurement (contratación directa), which, as indicated, starts precisely from the opposite notion, that is, the impossibility or high inconvenience of using ordinary bidding means to achieve the public end. The second reason is precisely closely related to the characteristics of the public end pursued with this procurement system, and which both the public entities and the Chamber itself understand to be the appropriate attention to the health of the individuals served by the CCSS, an interest for which the institutions defending the norm do not demonstrate that it is incompatible per se and in all cases with the characteristics of bidding procedures, but rather this Court understands that it is perfectly possible, in a good number of cases, that the normal means of procurement, used appropriately and with due foresight, produce the inventory of medications and other medical supplies suitable to meet the normal needs of the entity in that respect. Seen from this perspective, the truth is that the needs for medications and products indicated in the law under discussion, for the attention to the health of individuals by an institution like the CCSS that is dedicated to this task, are, as a general rule, predictable, based on a minimum organization and record of statistics and events, while the attention to inevitable unforeseen events and other emerging situations can clearly be attended to precisely through the legally existing direct procurement (contratación directa) mechanisms in the system, created for that specific purpose. In this latter sense, it is important to recall the Chamber's jurisprudence on the modulation of public powers arising from emergency situations. In this regard, when analyzing Articles 2 and 80 of the Law on Public Procurement (Ley de Contratación Administrativa), it was stated that:

“... But furthermore, it is timely to point out that the idea of treatment different from the ordinary in the face of exceptional situations has nothing novel or strange about it and appears even included (although for other scenarios) in our Political Constitution, which in numeral 180 states that:

“Article 180.- The ordinary budget and the extraordinary ones constitute the limit of action of the Public Powers for the use and disposition of State resources, and may only be modified by laws initiated by the Executive Power. Any modification project that implies an increase or creation of expenses must be subject to the provisions of the previous article. However, when the Assembly is in recess, the Executive Power may alter the destination of an authorized allocation, or open additional credits, but only to satisfy urgent or unforeseen needs in cases of war, internal upheaval, or public calamity. In such cases, the Office of the Comptroller General (Contraloría) may not deny its approval to the ordered expenses and the respective decree shall imply a call for the Legislative Assembly to extraordinary sessions for its knowledge.”” This would then refer to clearly exceptional situations that judgment number 3410-1992 of fourteen hours forty-five minutes on the tenth of November, nineteen ninety-two, had occasion to define as:

“...manifestations of what is known in Public Law doctrine as "state of necessity and urgency" (estado de necesidad y urgencia), by virtue of the principle "salus populi suprema lex est", understanding that the weaker juridical good (the conservation of the normal order of legislative competencies) must yield to the stronger juridical good (the conservation of the juridical and social order, which, on occasions, does not allow waiting for a law to be processed and approved); and in Criminal Law, as "state of necessity", that is, "a situation of danger for a juridical good, which can only be saved through the violation of another juridical good". And this is the same meaning of the text of Article 180 of the Constitution.”” In this way, neither the regulation nor the law are novel in recognizing and leaving open the possibility of exempting ordinary procurement procedures for groups of situations that by their condition:

“...must be understood within the most classic definition of force majeure (fuerza mayor) or, at most, of a fortuitous event (caso fortuito), that is, events that originate from nature, such as earthquakes and floods, or from the action of man, such as popular riots, invasions and war, or from the human condition itself, such as epidemics, events that are surprising and unforeseeable, or although foreseeable, unavoidable; (...) of abnormal situations that cannot be controlled, managed, or mastered with the ordinary measures available to the Government. (Judgment 3410-1992)” To this it would be fitting to add now that Law number 8511 of May sixteenth, two thousand six, although it eliminated the urgency from Article 2 just cited, instead added an Article 2 bis which, in its relevant part, states:

“Article 2 bis Authorizations. The following situations authorized by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) are excluded from the tender procedures established in this Law: (...) c) Other specific activities or cases in which sufficient reasons are accredited to consider that it is the only way to achieve proper satisfaction of the general interest or to avoid damages or injuries to public interests” The foregoing is without prejudice to the fact that, as was also stated, Article 80 of the cited Law expressly contemplates, for cases of urgency, the lifting of some or all formalities of public procurement. Thus, it is clear that the protection of health does not always entail that element of urgency or haste or unforeseen situation that the appearing public entities seem to perceive; it is also clear, moreover, that sufficient constitutional and legal support exists to underpin the waiver of procurement procedures in the attention of urgencies and emergencies that so merit it, for which reason the thesis that it is necessary to recognize the existence in this case of another constitutional authorization and justification for an attenuation of the constitutional principles of control of public procurement is not admissible for this Chamber.

VIII.A different line of argumentation to analyze the constitutionality of the challenged regulations is implicit in the submissions of the aforementioned institutions and consists of understanding that what the challenged regulations reflect is the balancing carried out by the legislator between two constitutional principles, namely, on one hand, the right to life and public health, and on the other, the principles and values that embody the right to challenge detrimental acts that the administered party enjoys and, furthermore, those that impose the existence of means of control over public actions, particularly those related to the public treasury and attributed in our constitutional environment to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República). This would be, in this specific case, a discussion regarding the apparent interference and overlap between the spheres and scopes of the right to life and public health, which obligate the State and, in this case, the Legislative Power to take the necessary and appropriate measures to ensure that this right is fulfilled in favor of citizens, versus the principles—developed essentially by the jurisprudence of this Chamber—that obligate the authorities and—again—specifically the legislator, to take the pertinent and necessary measures so that interested citizens have the possibility of exercising control over the actions of public bodies, in relation to procurements carried out with public funds, a control that is primarily carried out through the intervention as an improper hierarchical superior by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República). On this point, the Chamber considers that the contradiction is more apparent than real: as indicated in the previous recital (considerando), legally and within the framework of the right of the Constitution, a demarcation of fields of action is plausible that allows both sets of principles (health on one part and public procurement on the other) a broad development without interference. In particular, the Chamber considers that the public procurement system, viewed in its totality and with the application of its principles as they are outlined, allows and makes possible, without interference, an appropriate protection of the right to health and life of citizens, without this requiring or implying a reduction or attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to public procurement, just as the intervening institutions effectively argue, and as is indeed regulated in the regulations under discussion. It will suffice for this purpose that the demarcation and criteria that this Chamber has been defining over time are applied so that, as the Office of the Comptroller General (Contraloría) points out, "...ordinary solutions for ordinary situations and extraordinary solutions for extraordinary situations..." are applied, given that for this Court, the regulations err in establishing, with respect to the appeals system (sistema recursivo) and control system, a treatment of an extraordinary situation for procurement processes that lack such condition and that—with respect to the appeals system and control by the Office of the Comptroller General (Contraloría)—perfectly support compliance with the provisions of the ordinary procurement system with its rules and criteria defined according to the amount and adhering to the Right of the Constitution.

XIX.Conclusion and dimensioning.- From all of the foregoing, it is concluded that the challenged law is effectively unconstitutional but solely and exclusively with respect to the limitation of the appeals regime (régimen recursivo) and the intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) established in the special procurement procedure contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social), added through Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-three. The unconstitutionality originates in the phrase "with the sole authorization of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República)" of the cited article, which the Chamber considers contains an infringement of the principles of public procurement since, while the matter subject to procurement through this special procedure involves the health of individuals, that fact alone does not make it constitutionally admissible that, always and in all cases, the procurements must be carried out excluding the means of control that are normally established, according to the amount, for procurements carried out by state institutions. Rather, on the contrary, the Chamber understands that the health of individuals can be equally well served without harming other constitutional rights, simply by eliminating the aforementioned phrase, so that it is understood that the challenged regulations only substitute the ordinary system, in that a specific and different procedure is established, but that, regarding the appeals aspects and the intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General (Contraloría), the provisions established in the ordinary procurement system must be observed, all according to the amount of the transaction. With the foregoing, it must also be understood that the possibility remains open for the CCSS to resort to direct procurement (contratación directa) procedures in the established exceptional cases and respecting the fixed procedures, so that, through this route, extraordinary situations that threaten to harm the health of individuals and—demonstrably—cannot be resolved through the application of ordinary general or special procedures can be covered. By virtue of the provisions of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), this judgment has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of validity of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. However, in accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect procurements formalized and completed, nor those that are in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this judgment in the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial). Given the particular nature of the declaration of unconstitutionality established here, which seeks to remedy an act of exclusion established unconstitutionally, the appropriate action is to link the special procedure established in Articles 71 and 72 of the challenged Law with the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement (Ley de la Contratación Administrativa), number 7494, reformed by Law number 7612, and with what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of the current year, all as indicated, with exclusive reference to the appeals regime (régimen recursivo) and the intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) established therein, according to the amount of the transaction. Magistrates Armijo Sancho and Cruz Castro dissent from the vote and declare the action without merit based on the reasons they present.

XX. Magistrates Vargas and Cruz dissent from the vote and declare the action without merit

Por tanto

The action is declared with merit, and consequently, the phrase "may be carried out with the sole authorization of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República)" contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social), added through Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-three, is annulled for unconstitutionality. This judgment has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of validity of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. In accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect procurements formalized and completed, nor those that are in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this judgment in the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial). By virtue of the ordered declaration, and regarding the appeals regime (régimen recursivo) and the intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social) must apply the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement (Ley de la Contratación Administrativa), number 7494, reformed by Law number 7612, and what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of the current year, as applicable according to the amount of the transaction. Let this pronouncement be summarized in the Official Gazette La Gaceta and published in full in the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial). Let this pronouncement be communicated to the Legislative and Executive Powers, to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) and the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social). Let it be notified.

Ana Virginia Calzada M. Acting President Luis Paulino Mora M. Adrián Vargas B.

Gilbert Armijo S. Ernesto Jinesta L.

Fernando Cruz C. Jorge Araya G.

**“ I.- On admissibility.** This action of unconstitutionality is based on a remedy of amparo which, under file number 03-10187-0007-CO, was admitted by the Court and within which the petitioner was granted a period to file an action of unconstitutionality against the challenged norms. For this reason, and given that the other established formal requirements have been met, it is appropriate to hear the claim on the merits, as is done below..

** II.- Object of the challenge.** As can be deduced from the filing brief, the action is directed against Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social), as amended by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred and eighty-three, but solely insofar as it permits the purchase of medicines (medicamentos) with the sole authorization of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), which is deemed to affect the constitutional powers of said controlling body in its oversight function of the Public Treasury (Hacienda Pública). This legal rule contained in the challenged norm violates, as alleged, the right of access to administrative justice, the intervention powers of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic constitutionally established, and the constitutional principle of control of procedures, in addition to the principle of reasonableness.

** III.- On the merits.** As noted supra, this action of unconstitutionality does not dispute the existence of a special recruitment (contratación) system legislatively established for the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (hereinafter the "Caja") to acquire certain categories of goods it needs to fulfill its function. The constitutionality problem arises for the petitioner due to the manner in which the legislator has regulated such special system at the specific point of the possibilities of intervention of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, in its capacity as oversight body of administrative contracting (contratación administrativa), and concretely regarding the recourse aspect which, as he points out, is simply non-existent. The petitioner relies on jurisprudential citations from this constitutional control body (998-98, 5947-98 and 2832-98 among others) from which he extracts the legal necessity that, in the legislative design of any and all contracting systems – in order to comply with the constitutionally established principles on the matter recognized in jurisprudence – mechanisms must be contemplated to allow the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic a controlling intervention through recourse channels (vía recursiva) in direct relation to the amount of the transaction, both in adherence to its constitutional functions, and because this proves to be a required concretion of the right of challenge which citizens must have in this matter. For their part, both the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría) and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, as well as the Caja in its capacity as counterpart, oppose the claim and state that the legislator has acted within the framework of its powers in designing the special contracting system under discussion. They recognize a drastic reduction in the recourse phase before the Comptroller's Office (Contraloría) and, for that very reason, a reduction of its intervention in the contracting processes, but they point out that this is legally appropriate and necessary for the satisfaction of the specific public interest involved. In this line of argument, they affirm that it cannot be lost sight of that the special contracting system under discussion is for the purchase of medicines included in the national formulary and other accessories closely related to people's health, so that what is at stake is the right to life of the inhabitants of the Republic, which, in the opinion of the cited bodies, constitutes sufficient justification, in constitutional review, for the legislator to have opted, as it did, for the special contracting design it ultimately established in the challenged regulation. This design, although undeniably reducing the appellate means (medios recursivos) as indicated, does not thereby violate the constitutional principles cited by the petitioner, given that the legal system as a whole provides distinct but sufficient mechanisms to comply with the essence of the principle of control and transparency enshrined in our Political Constitution.

** IV.-** It is in judgment number 998-98 of eleven thirty hours on February sixteenth, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, that this Court undertakes the task of systematizing the ideas and principles of constitutional rank it had been recognizing over the years in matters of administrative contracting. In relation to the topic at hand, the following was stated there:

"VI. THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTING (PRINCIPIOS DE LA CONTRATACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA). (...) By virtue of the foregoing, it must be understood that from Article 182 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política) are derived **all** the constitutional principles and parameters that govern the State's contractual activity. Some of these principles that guide and regulate the tender are: **(...)** and **10.- <u>of the control of procedures (del control de los procedimientos)</u>**, a principle by which all tasks of administrative contracting are subject to control and oversight for the sake of verifying, at least, the correct use of public funds. Thus, throughout the entire procedure of administrative contracting, at least the verification of the following controls is necessary: **the legal one (el jurídico)**, to verify that no entity or official performs any act or assumes behaviors that violate the Law, carried out by verifying the prior existence of economic resources; **the accounting one (el contable)**, which is the examination or judgment of the accounts of the dependencies and officials in charge of the administration of State funds and assets, which derives from the constant and systematic review of all operations affecting the budgetary appropriations approved by the Legislative Assembly or the Comptroller's Office, so that expenditures have financial backing and conform to the established classification, carried out by the budget and accounting control offices of each contracting entity or institution; **the financial one (el financiero)**, which consists of the oversight of the correct collection of revenue and the legality of public expenditure, the responsibility of the institutions' own financial offices, the National Treasury (Tesorería Nacional), the Budget Office, and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic; and **the economic or results control (el control económico o de resultados)**, which is carried out over the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management, that is, over the results of said management, the determination of compliance with established goals, and the optimal use of resources, a control that is carried out very partially by the institutions and has not been conceived as an effective instrument for managerial and institutional development. These principles have recognition both at a doctrinal level and in jurisprudence, and have already been developed by this Court on repeated occasions and prior to this judgment, as follows: (...)" And later it concludes:

"VIII.- GENERAL INITIAL CONCLUSION. Based on the foregoing considerations, it is evident, in the opinion of this Court, that the principles derived from Article 182 of the Political Constitution, and as such, of constitutional rank, have been amply and repeatedly confirmed by its own jurisprudence. Moreover, in that same direction, traditionally, since it began its functions, the very Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic has protected them in the exercise of its constitutional functions, according to its own administrative precedents. By reason of what has been stated, it is concluded that in this sense, the development of the topic of administrative contracting has occurred, both through administrative and judicial jurisprudence, since the enactment of our Fundamental Charter in the year nineteen hundred and forty-nine. However, the foregoing does not exclude a brief consideration of the rationale of the Law examined in these accumulated actions, regarding the so-called principle of State efficiency in the administration of public matters: the Court admits, as is logical to infer from the different manifestations that have been presented in this case, that it is legislative policy to define the scope of administrative contracting systems, as a consequence derived from the text of the aforementioned Article 182 of the Political Constitution, in the sense that administrative contracting must be carried out by means of a tender **"in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount."** But this does not exclude this Tribunal, by reason of its essential function as custodian of the principle of constitutional supremacy, from having to examine the reasonableness and proportionality of the norms, to determine if they conform to the essential principles already indicated. And as a general initial conclusion, which emerges from the examination of the principles, doctrine, and jurisprudence that have been set forth in the preceding recitals, it can only be affirmed that the administrative contracting system is composed, on the one hand, of the constitutional principles emanating from Article 182 of the Constitution itself, and on the other hand, as a complement, of the control system exercised directly by the constitutional body in charge of the fiscalization (fiscalización) and supervision (vigilancia) of the Public Treasury, that is, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, which is established as a guarantee of the correct use of public funds for the satisfaction of the public interest. It is in light of these norms and principles that the reasonableness and proportionality of the challenged regulation, concerning administrative contracting contained in the challenged Law and Regulation, shall be analyzed." (...)

XIX.- THE CHALLENGE TO ARTICLE 84 OF THE LAW OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTING (LEY DE CONTRATACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA).

The plaintiffs challenge Article 84 of the Public Procurement Law (Ley de Contratación Administrativa), insofar as it establishes extremely high amounts for an appeal to the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) to proceed, which marginalizes and completely destroys public bidding, in violation of Article 182 of the Constitution. In relation to this challenge, it must first be recalled that, precisely from the conception of the material constitutional norm of Article 182 of the Fundamental Charter (Carta Fundamental), the principles governing public procurement derive, and consequently, are of mandatory observance; the control exercised directly by the Comptroller General of the Republic takes on special importance. Indeed, from the point of view of the right to appeal that is recognized for every participant in a public procurement competition (concurso público), the challenged provision is the one that establishes the limits marking the threshold from which the award can be appealed before the Comptroller General of the Republic, and it does so based on the amounts of the procurements. Since that right (to challenge) is conditioned upon the amounts established in Article 27 of the same Law, Article 84 loses its legal basis, because, as analyzed in Considerando XIII of this ruling, Article 27 of the Law, which was its legal basis, is unconstitutional, and therefore this other norm is clearly and manifestly unconstitutional. It is so because, in a surreptitious manner, what is sought is to ignore the principle of public order derived from Article 182 of the Constitution, that all procurement entered into by the State must be carried out through public bidding (licitación), with all its consequences and in observance of all its principles, for which a limitation is used that, by being exaggerated in its amounts, is disproportionate and unreasonable. Regarding the right to appeal itself, it must be noted that this Chamber has previously indicated that the principles informing due process are also mandatorily applicable in administrative procedures; thus, in ruling number 2130-94, at fourteen hours fifty-seven minutes on May third, nineteen ninety-four, it stated:

"[...] the plaintiff's allegations are without merit. The national legal system establishes a wide range of fundamental procedural guarantees and principles, fully applicable not only in the jurisdictional sphere, *but also in every administrative procedure*, such that their non-observance causes absolute nullity, due to unconstitutionality, of everything acted upon, especially in cases like the present one, in which the Administration (la Administración) is empowered by law to eliminate an act creating subjective rights - in this case a concession - issued in favor of the administered party. Said principles and guarantees derive, in general, from Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution (la Constitución Política), and more specifically from the General Law of Public Administration (la Ley General de la Administración Pública), whose procedural principles, due to the special nature of the matter they regulate, are of mandatory observance. Among them, according to ruling number 15-90 at sixteen hours forty-five minutes on January fifth, nineteen ninety, from this Chamber, are:

'... a) Notification to the interested party of the nature and purposes of the procedure; b) right to be heard, and opportunity for the interested party to present arguments and produce the evidence they deem pertinent; c) opportunity for the administered party to prepare their allegation, which necessarily includes access to information and the administrative background related to the matter at hand; ch) right of the administered party to be represented and advised by lawyers, technicians, and other qualified persons; d) adequate notification of the decision issued by the Administration and the grounds on which it is based; and e) right of the interested party to appeal the decision issued...'"; a criterion that has been reiterated by the jurisprudence of this Chamber (in this same sense, see ruling number 2360-94 at fifteen hours six minutes on May seventeenth, nineteen ninety-four). Now, since appealing against administrative acts that harm us is a fundamental right, it is possible, and moreover necessary, to regulate the manner in which this right must be exercised, as indicated in ruling number 1420-91 at nine hours on July twenty-fourth, nineteen ninety-one:

"Indeed, the principle of reasonableness implies that the State can limit or restrict the abusive exercise of the right, but it must do so in such a way that the legal norm conforms in all its elements, such as the motive and the purpose it pursues, to the objective meaning contemplated in the Constitution." Note that what has been admitted is solely the regulation of this right, so it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right impossible or nugatory; and in this case, it must not be forgotten that exhaustion of administrative remedies (agotamiento de la vía administrativa) is an admissibility requirement to access the jurisdictional route, specifically the contentious-administrative route (vía contencioso administrativa). By reason of the foregoing, it is feasible to conclude that the speed of public procurement procedures must be ensured by means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to swift, complete, and non-deniable justice, so that *the possibilities of appeal for participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited. (...) In this sense, it must not be forgotten that the control of bidding procedures constitutes an essential principle of public procurement, precisely for the sake of protecting and guaranteeing the public interest regarding the verification and oversight of the correct use of public funds. The foregoing principle was confirmed by this Chamber in ruling number 2514-93 at nine hours six minutes on June fourth, nineteen ninety-three, in which it considered that the power granted to the administration to declare competitions void is not unconstitutional, but the denial of appeals against the award resolutions of public tenders would be, in the following terms:

"In accordance with Article 9 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), this action must be rejected on the merits, since Article 131 of the Regulations for Public Procurement (Reglamento de la Contratación Administrativa) allows the ex officio revocation or annulment of the act declaring a competition void, but does not grant any recourse *before non-jurisdictional bodies* to potentially affected parties, a regulation that *per se* does not infringe the fundamental principles of due process nor those informing free competition and transparency inherent to public procurement, as it could not be affirmed that participants in a tender have a fundamental right that it not be declared void, or that the law provides for a remedy *in the administrative venue to challenge that declaration*, and in any event, as will be said, the legal system provides a legal remedy to challenge the final decision rendered in 'all State tenders'; declaring it void entails the exercise of a discretionary power of the tendering body that this Chamber could not substitute. It must be established that the denial of appeals against resolutions awarding a public tender would indeed be grounds for amparo, as it would violate due process since once a tender is awarded - contrary to the act declaring it void - it can indeed be affirmed that participants have a fundamental right that the point be examined by the Comptroller General of the Republic, because the legal transaction has been concluded with economic significance for the Administration and for the participants, whereas the declaration of voidness does not preclude the competition from being convened again." V.- Based on such principles, this tribunal had the opportunity to rule even more specifically regarding the fundamental right to appeals in this matter and the participation of the Comptroller (la Contraloría) in them, when it declared a norm unconstitutional for establishing excessively high economic parameters that rendered the right to appeal nugatory in a good number of procurements and because the competence to hear any eventual appeals was transferred to another body distinct from the Comptroller General of the Republic. In such manner it was stated:

"VII.- (...) On that occasion [ruling number 998-98 just cited] it reiterated that the principles informing due process are also mandatorily applicable in administrative procedures, so it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right nugatory; so that the speed of public procurement procedures must be ensured by means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to swift, complete, and non-deniable justice, so that the possibilities of appeal for participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited. In view of the foregoing, the first unconstitutionality of this paragraph is concluded, since by having established such high thresholds for the applicability of public bidding, the first paragraph of Article 171 of the Law of the Central Bank (Ley del Banco Central), previously declared unconstitutional, makes access to the appeal remedy difficult or impossible. The second unconstitutionality of this provision must be considered in light of what was stated in the preceding considerando (VI.), regarding the functions and own competencies of the Comptroller General of the Republic; so that the hearing of appeals, with the degree of improper hierarchical superior, of the award acts agreed upon by the banks of the national banking system, forms part of the oversight powers exercised by the Comptroller in the vigilance of the public treasury (hacienda pública), in accordance with constitutional norms and principles, which the ordinary legislator cannot limit or distort. (...)" (ruling 1998-05947 at fourteen hours thirty-two minutes on August nineteenth, nineteen ninety-eight.)

The foregoing thesis, however, was limited in its broad scope by the Chamber itself when analyzing the specific topic of the difference in the appeal regimes (regímenes recursivos) and the participation of the Comptroller General of the Republic in registry-based (licitaciones por registro) and restricted (restringidas) tenders. On that occasion, the following was stated:

"III.- Although these norms were not analyzed in a particularized manner in ruling number 0998-98, at eleven hours thirty minutes on February sixteenth of this year, the truth is that a series of principles were established therein, specifically regarding the characteristics that restricted and registry-based tenders contained in the Public Procurement Law may have, which are fundamental to settle the question.- Specifically, the following was stated (..)

IV.- Based on the principles established in the transcribed ruling [referring to ruling number 998-98 cited above] it is concluded that the challenged norms do not violate Articles 39, 41 and 183 of the Political Constitution.- According to what the law provides, following the variations operated by the ruling of the Chamber just cited, the restricted tender and the registry-based tender are procurement modalities that correspond to what was previously known as 'private tender' (licitación privada); therefore, under such conditions, it is constitutionally admissible that the challenge regime differ from that defined for public bidding, precisely because these are sufficiently regulated special situations, in which, according to the constitutional doctrine set forth in the preceding considerandos, the participation of the Comptroller General of the Republic can be tempered, especially taking into account the extensive regulation that such bidding processes (restricted tender and registry-based tender) currently have compared to their predecessor, the private tender.- In conclusion, the alleged infringement of the right of access to administrative justice does not exist, because the possibility of review of the actions taken exists in the discussed norms, nor is the control regime that Article 183 grants to the Comptroller General of the Republic disrespected." Finally, it is important to note that in ruling number 13910-2005 at fifteen hours four minutes on October eleventh, two thousand five, the Chamber confirmed all the ideas set forth above and determined, on the one hand, the validity of the attenuation of public procurement principles in certain processes of the ordinary procurement system (restricted tender and registry-based tender) and, on the other hand, also defined the necessity and constitutional validity of the so-called direct procurement (contratación directa) as a necessary exception to complete the public procurement system in cases where the use of ordinary bidding means of any kind would jeopardize the achievement of the public purpose pursued.

VI.- The plaintiff's thesis in this case is essentially based on the described background, and maintains that the special procurement procedure at the center of this action prevents administered parties from challenging before the Comptroller acts such as the bidding documents (cartel de licitación) or the award, without distinguishing the amount of the transaction, thereby - just as in the described background - the right to appeal harmful decisions in public tenders - that is, those of a certain amount and with a broad process - is limited in an unreasonable and clearly unconstitutional manner, as has been required by the Chamber. The public entities appearing in this process affirm that since the attenuation of public procurement principles in certain cases is constitutionally admissible, the legislator has not acted wrongly in designing, in the discussed regulations, a particular procurement system, characterized - for what is relevant here - by a decrease in appeal guarantees, if such legislative action of attenuation is based on the need to protect a good of constitutional rank such as people's health. However, for the Chamber, this line of reasoning contradicts Article 182 of the Constitution, which, as has been said, serves as the basis for the development of the principles of the public procurement system, since said provision embraces bidding as the normal means of procurement "in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount," whereby the Constituent opts for the amount as the discriminating parameter in the design of various types of public procurement processes which, according to the amount, may have diverse regulations, but always respecting in its essence the right of the Constitution. In such a way, with the exception of the amount, our constitutional text does not expressly recognize any other parameter for the application of an attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to public procurement.

VII.- It could be understood, nonetheless, that even if it does not appear expressly contemplated in the constitutional text, it is legally necessary to recognize a constitutional authorization not express, but tacitly established, to distinguish bidding mechanisms with different degrees of requirements, insofar as, as argued, certain public purposes are incompatible with normal procurement processes. For this body, that is precisely what occurred with a special type of public procurement process called direct procurement, the nature of which was expounded upon in the cited ruling 13910-05, precisely in the sense that, although it is not included in Article 182 of the Constitution, it is a necessary instrument to address certain procurement needs that, due to their special characteristics, cannot be subjected to ordinary bidding processes (specifically public bidding, registry-based tender, and restricted tender). However, for the Chamber, this is also not the case for the challenged regulations for two fundamental reasons: the first, of a procedural nature, consists of noting that the design of the procurement system challenged in this action is basically built upon the concept of a competition or tender. Briefly, it is observed that: a) there exists a pre-established set or catalog of technical specifications (fichas técnicas) that fully describe the determining conditions and elements of the products that will at some point be tendered. Such catalog is updated and reviewed frequently for its improvement, as reported by the Caja (la Caja), so that future participants and any interested party can know in advance the precise characteristics of the object of the competition; b) the body in charge of procurement likewise has a registry in which interested suppliers have previously registered according to each product and its technical specification, and it is based on such Registry that the call for competition is made, in which, as all entities indicate, it must be understood as required that a call will be made to all registered suppliers; c) the offers presented are evaluated on an equal footing and the choice must be made according to conditions of quality and price, and; d) the actions within this regime have - as also expressed by the three entities - a variety of means of challenge, and specifically, the Caja affirms that the supplier registry, the technical specification, and the act of award can be discussed and challenged, which can be discussed by the individual before the Caja as the active administration, through the means of challenge contained in the General Law of Public Administration. All of the foregoing establishes for the Chamber that, as explained, the purchase of goods through the challenged mechanism clearly adheres to a competition or - in the words of our constituent - a tender (licitación) and not a direct procurement, which, as indicated, starts precisely from the opposite notion, that is, the impossibility or high inconvenience of employing ordinary bidding means to achieve the public purpose. The second reason is closely related to the characteristics of the public purpose pursued with this procurement system, and which both the public entities and the Chamber itself understand to be the appropriate provision of health care for the people served by the Caja, an interest that the institutions defending the norm do not demonstrate is incompatible per se and in all cases with the characteristics of bidding procedures; rather, this Tribunal understands that it is perfectly possible, in a good number of cases, for normal procurement means, used appropriately and with due foresight, to produce the inventory of medications and other adequate medical material to meet the normal needs of the entity in that respect. Seen from this perspective, the truth is that the needs for medications and products indicated in the discussed law, for the health care of people by an institution like the Caja, which is dedicated to that task, are, as a general rule, predictable, based on minimal organization and recording of statistics and events, while the attention of inevitable unforeseen events and other emerging situations can clearly be addressed precisely through the legally existing direct procurement mechanisms in the legal system, created for that specific purpose. In this latter sense, it is important to recall the jurisprudence of the Chamber on the modulation of public powers that arises from emergency situations.

In this regard, when analyzing Articles 2 and 80 of the Administrative Procurement Law (Ley de Contratación administrativa), it was stated that:

“… But furthermore, it is timely to point out that the idea of a treatment different from the ordinary one in the face of exceptional situations is neither novel nor strange and that it appears even included (although for other cases) in our Political Constitution, which in numeral 180 states that:

“Article 180.- The ordinary budget and the extraordinary ones constitute the limit of action of the Public Powers for the use and disposal of State resources, and they may only be modified by laws initiated by the Executive Power.

Any modification project that implies an increase or creation of expenditures must be subject to the provisions of the previous article.

However, when the Assembly is in recess, the Executive Power may vary the destination of an authorized allocation, or open additional credits, but only to satisfy urgent or unforeseen needs in cases of war, internal commotion, or public calamity. In such cases, the Comptroller General’s Office may not deny its approval of the ordered expenditures and the respective decree shall imply a call for the Legislative Assembly to hold extraordinary sessions for its consideration.” This would then concern clearly exceptional situations that judgment number 3410-1992, of fourteen hours and forty-five minutes on November tenth, nineteen ninety-two, had occasion to define as:

“…manifestations of what is known in Public Law doctrine as ‘state of necessity and urgency’ (estado de necesidad y urgencia), by virtue of the principle ‘salus populi suprema lex est’, understanding that the weaker legal right (the preservation of the normal order of legislative powers) must yield to the stronger legal right (the preservation of the legal and social order, which, on occasion, does not permit waiting for a law to be processed and approved); and in Criminal Law, as ‘state of necessity,’ that is, ‘a situation of danger for a legal right, which can only be saved by violating another legal right,’. And this is the same meaning of the text of constitutional Article 180.” Thus, neither the regulation nor the law is novel in recognizing and leaving open the possibility of exempting ordinary procurement procedures in the face of groups of situations that by their condition:

“…must be understood within the oldest definition of force majeure or, at most, of fortuitous event, that is, events that come from nature, such as earthquakes and floods, or from human action, such as popular uprisings, invasions, and war, or from the human condition itself, such as epidemics, events that are surprising and unforeseeable, or although foreseeable, inevitable; (…) of abnormal situations that cannot be controlled, managed, or dominated with the ordinary measures available to the Government. (Judgment 3410-1992) To this it could now be added that Law number 8511 of May sixteenth, two thousand six, although it eliminated the urgency from the recently cited Article 2, instead added an Article 2 bis which, in its pertinent part, states:

“Article 2 bis Authorizations. The following cases authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) are excluded from the competitive procedures established in this Law:

(…)

• c)Other activities or specific cases in which sufficient reasons are accredited to consider that it is the only way to achieve the proper satisfaction of the general interest or to avoid damages or injuries to public interests” The foregoing is without prejudice to the fact that, as was also said, Article 80 of the cited Law expressly contemplates for cases of urgency the lifting of some or all of the formalities of administrative procurement. In this way, it is clear that health protection does not always entail that element of urgency or haste or unforeseen situation that the appearing public entities seem to appreciate; it is also clear that there is sufficient constitutional and legal support to sustain the waiver of procurement procedures in the attention of urgencies and emergencies that so merit it, therefore, the thesis that it is necessary to recognize the existence in this case of another constitutional authorization and justification for an attenuation of the constitutional principles of control of administrative procurement is not admissible for this Chamber.

VIII.A different line of argumentation to analyze the constitutionality of the challenged regulations is implicit in the briefs of the above-mentioned institutions and consists of understanding that the challenged regulations reflect the weighting made by the legislator between two constitutional principles, namely, on one hand, the right to life and public health, and on the other, the principles and values that embody the right to challenge harmful acts enjoyed by the administered party and also those that impose the existence of means of control over public actions, particularly those related to the public treasury and attributed in our constitutional environment to the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República). In this specific case, it would be a discussion regarding the apparent interference and overlap between the spheres and scopes of the right to life and public health, which oblige the State, and in this case the Legislative Power, to take the necessary and appropriate measures to ensure its fulfillment for the benefit of citizens, in front of the principles—developed essentially by the jurisprudence of this Chamber—that oblige the authorities and—again—specifically the legislator, to take the pertinent and necessary measures so that interested citizens have the possibility of exercising control over the actions of public bodies, in relation to procurements made with public funds, this control which must be carried out primarily through the intervention as an improper hierarchical superior by the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República). On this point, this Chamber deems that the contradiction is more apparent than real: as indicated in the previous recital, legally and within the framework of the Law of the Constitution, a delineation of fields of action is plausible that allows for both sets of principles (health on one side and administrative procurement on the other) a broad development without interference. In particular, this Chamber considers that the administrative procurement system, seen in its totality and with the application of its principles as they are outlined, allows and makes possible without interference an appropriate protection of the right to health and life of citizens, without this requiring and implying a diminution or attenuation in the constitutional principles related to administrative procurement, just as the intervening institutions indeed maintain, and as it is effectively regulated in the discussed regulations. For such effect, it will suffice to apply the delineation and the criteria that this Chamber has been defining over time so that, as the Comptroller General’s Office indicates, “…ordinary solutions to ordinary situations and extraordinary solutions to extraordinary situations…” are applied, this Court understanding that the regulations err by establishing, with respect to the appeals and control system, an extraordinary situation treatment for procurement processes that lack such a condition and which—in what refers to the appeals and control system by the Comptroller General’s Office—perfectly withstand the fulfillment of the provisions of the ordinary procurement system with its rules and criteria defined according to the amount and adhering to the Law of the Constitution.

XIX.Conclusion and dimensioning.- From all of the above, it is concluded that the challenged law is indeed unconstitutional but solely and exclusively with regard to the limitation of the appeals system and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) established in the special procurement procedure contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro social), added by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred eighty-three. The unconstitutionality originates in the phrase “with the sole authorization of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República)” of the cited article, which this Chamber deems contains a violation of the principles of administrative procurement because, although the health of individuals is at stake in the matters subject to procurement through this special procedure, that fact alone does not make it constitutionally admissible that, always and in every case, procurements must be carried out with the exclusion of the control means that are normally established, according to the amount, for the procurements carried out by state institutions. Quite the contrary, this Chamber understands that the health of individuals can be equally well served without harming other constitutional rights, by simply eliminating the phrase indicated above, so that it is understood that the challenged regulations only substitute the ordinary system,

in that a concrete and different procedure is set but that, regarding the appeal aspects and intervention by the Comptroller General’s Office, the provisions established in the ordinary procurement system must be observed, all according to the amount of the transaction. With the foregoing, it must also be understood that the possibility remains open for the Fund (la Caja) to resort to direct procurement procedures in the established exceptional cases and with respect for the fixed procedures, so that through that route, extraordinary situations that threaten to harm the health of individuals and—demonstrably—cannot be resolved through the application of ordinary general or special procedures can be covered. By virtue of the provisions of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), this judgment has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of validity of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. However, in accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect procurements formalized and concluded, nor those that are in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this judgment in the Judicial Bulletin. Given the particular nature of the declaration of unconstitutionality established herein, which seeks to remedy an act of exclusion established unconstitutionally, the proper course is to link the special procedure established in Articles 71 and 72 of the challenged Law, with the provisions of the Law of Administrative Procurement (Ley de la Contratación Administrativa), number 7494, amended by Law number 7612, and to what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours and thirty minutes on February sixteenth of the current year, all of this as indicated with exclusive reference to the appeals system and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), established therein, according to the amount of the transaction. Magistrates Armijo Sancho and Cruz Castro dissent and declare the action without merit based on the reasons they set forth.

XX. Magistrates Vargas and Cruz dissent and declare the action without merit”

*** La Sala Constitucional en varias ocasiones ha tenido la oportunidad de desarrollar los alcances de lo estipulado en el artículo 180 de la Constitución Política. Dicha norma establece: Article 180.- The ordinary budget and the extraordinary ones constitute the limit of action of the Public Powers for the use and disposal of State resources, and they may only be modified by laws initiated by the Executive Power. Any modification project that implies an increase or creation of expenditures must be subject to the provisions of the previous article. However, when the Assembly is in recess, the Executive Power may vary the destination of an authorized allocation, or open additional credits, but only to satisfy urgent or unforeseen needs in cases of war, internal commotion, or public calamity. In such cases, the Comptroller General’s Office may not deny its approval of the ordered expenditures and the respective decree shall imply a call for the Legislative Assembly to hold extraordinary sessions for its consideration. Judgment 1369-01, 1557-07 *** 1557-07. PROCEDURE FOR THE PURCHASE OF MEDICINES BY THE CCSS. Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund.

Also participating in this process are Farid Beirute Brenes, as Assistant Prosecutor, Rodrigo Coredero Fernández and Judith Reyes Castillo representing the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social), and Rocío Aguilar Montoya, in her capacity as Comptroller General of the Republic.

**Resultando:** **1.-** By brief received at the Secretariat of the Chamber at thirteen hours five minutes on May twenty-sixth, two thousand four, the petitioner requests that the unconstitutionality of Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social), added by Law number 6914, be declared, as he claims that after the reform established to the cited article by Law number 6914, a special type of procurement procedure was incorporated into the legal system that the Costa Rican Social Security Fund can use for the purchase of certain medications. He affirms that the company he represents is precisely a supplier of medications to the aforementioned institution and that in such condition it must participate in such special procurement procedure, which suffers from several defects that render it unconstitutional. He points out that, fundamentally, the procedure established by the challenged article qualifies as a modality of the genus of direct procurements (contrataciones directas), so the principles of Constitutional numeral 182 take a back seat, being displaced by a procedure like direct procurement, which is usually employed only by way of exception. The consequences, more clearly contradictory to Constitutional Article 182 and its principles, are, according to the petitioner, that regardless of the amount of the transaction, it is not possible to file bid objection remedies (recursos de objeción del cartel) before the Comptroller's Office (Contraloría), nor can an appeal remedy (recurso de apelación) be filed against the award act before the cited body, besides the fact that the only oversight intervention of the comptroller body consists of issuing an authorization for the award act within five days, also without taking into account the amount of the transaction. The petitioner affirms that such consequences of the challenged norm clearly contravene constitutional principles established by the Chamber for administrative procurement, and specifically the following: a) the fundamental right to appeal before an impartial body, award acts for purchases by the administration of special quantitative and qualitative importance, recognized and applied by the constitutionality controller in various rulings, notably in resolutions 998-98 and 2832-98 of the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional); b) the notion of intangibility for the ordinary legislator of the oversight powers over Public Finance by the comptroller body, enshrined in the Fundamental Charter, and which the Constitutional Chamber has had occasion to describe and delimit, for instance, in ruling number 2430-94, as well as in the same rulings numbers 998-98 and 5947-98 among others. c) the principle of control of procedures, regarding which the Chamber has been consistent in its jurisprudence by pointing it out as a parameter of constitutionality when analyzing regulations related to administrative procurement. In conclusion, these three notions that the Chamber has established as forming part of the constitutional framework in the area of administrative procurement are seriously threatened, if not entirely eliminated, by the challenged Article 72 insofar as a procedure is legislatively imposed that disregards the application of essential principles, without being within any of the exceptions that the Chamber has also permitted, considering various factors. The petitioner points out that in the case in question, we are dealing with ordinary administrative procurements of any amount, which by the mere will of the legislator have been excluded from the general rules and the constitutional principles that regulate the matter, which is unacceptable in light of the Law of the Constitution.

**2.-** By resolution of thirteen hours fifty minutes on June first, two thousand four, (visible on folio 46 front and back of the expediente), the action was accepted for processing, granting a hearing to the Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría General de la República) and to the Executive President of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund.

**3.-** By resolution of thirteen hours fifty minutes on July thirteenth, two thousand six, (visible on folio 265 of the expediente), a hearing was granted to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República).

**4.-** Farid Beirute Brenes, of legal age, married, attorney, resident of San José, identity card number 1-394-673, in his capacity as Assistant Attorney General (Procurador General Adjunto), appears to respond to the hearing granted to his represented party and points out that, in his view, for reasons of public interest the legislator decided to establish a special procedure for certain purchases by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, which is not unusual given that the existence of a particularized treatment for the purchase of medications is accepted because they are fundamental to health. For the Attorney General's Office, the challenged procedure, contained in Article 72 of the discussed Law, does not establish a direct procurement, the nature of which would effectively be exceptional, but rather its provisions make it much more closely resemble the so-called registry tender (licitación por registro). It is indicated that to purchase medications, a competition is promoted among interested parties registered in a registry, and it is not possible to understand that there is discretion to request quotes from whomever one wishes, but rather it should be understood that all registrants must be invited. It must be remembered that the questioned procedure was inserted as a special one compared to that established in the Financial Administration Law and from that perspective, it could not be said that it was a direct procurement process. Thus, the procedure provides an exception to the public tender (licitación pública), since it applies to any amount, and it differs from the private tender (licitación privada) because it better protects competition. The Attorney General's Office affirms that Constitutional Article 182 affirms the legislator's possibility to establish types of tender, and the administration is not obligated to exclusively process public tenders. What must be rescued and protected is the application and verification in the procurement processes of the essential principles of the competition, among which are publicity, competition, equality of opportunity, and transparency. These elements must be the main object of control, which cannot be merely formal on the part of the authorities or the Comptroller's Office, and even less so in a control of "formal legality" as seems to be inferred from resolutions of that Comptroller's Office. In good theory, the Comptroller's Office's participation through an authorization given after the process is completed by the administration should include control not only of the award act but of the entire procedure. Regarding the reasonableness of the procurement procedure, it is questioned whether an unreasonable procedure was defined, as proven by the fact that the Fund continues to contract the purchase of medications through direct summons (citación directa) because the deadlines of the special law are not respected by the authorities themselves. However, the truth is that the fact that the means is not the most suitable does not mean it is unconstitutional. Added to this is the fact that unreasonableness would arise from the action of the authorities and not from the design itself. It is claimed that there is an absence of appropriate control of the administrative procurement because there is no bid-objection remedy (recuso de objeción al cartel) and appeal against the award act before the Comptroller's Office, thereby violating the right to administrative justice. For the Attorney General's Office, it must be remembered that although private parties' appeal of resolutions that affect them is part of due process, this does not obligate that the Comptroller's Office must be the one to hear them. Maintaining the necessity of the Comptroller's Office's participation is to ignore the systemic nature of the legal system, because it should be recalled that before 1996, the bid objection and appeal before the Comptroller's Office were not recognized for processes other than public tender, and as said, it is understood that award acts are subject to review in any case, but such act is regulated by the Law of Public Administration and with its formalities. The Attorney General's Office also points out that the alleged infringement of the control of administrative procurement, which has constitutional standing, is not endangered as the petitioner claims because such activities clearly exceed intervention through the resolution of remedies filed by private interested parties. For example, oversight tasks include audits, investigation of special topics, etc. Thus, no one could ever understand that the procedure established in the discussed Law is less controllable because it does not include the remedies of bid objection and objection to the award act before the Comptroller's Office. The truth is that, as these are matters affecting public finance, these procurements fully fall within the scope of competencies established for the Comptroller's Office, all of the foregoing without prejudice to the control or authorization that the Comptroller's Office must give on a case-by-case basis for the procurements, a requirement without which they cannot be carried out.

**5.-** Rodrigo Coredero Fernández and Judith Reyes Castillo, both of legal age, attorneys, and residents of San José, the former married twice and with identity card number one-three hundred twenty-five-nine hundred fifty-seven; the latter married and with identity card number one-eight hundred eighty-six-three hundred thirty-one, appeared representing the Costa Rican Social Security Fund to respond to the hearing granted, and they point out that in their opinion, the challenged Law fully conforms to the constitutional legal system, because what was always sought was to establish a mechanism for the purchase of medications and raw materials that was more agile as a result of the Fund having assumed the country's Hospitals. They add that the challenged law establishes special challenge means to substitute those established by the Procurement Law. This is seen in the preparation of a registry of eligible parties, in the so-called technical sheets (fichas técnicas) that are published in the Gazette (Gaceta); furthermore, all ordinary remedies are admitted as if it were a normal administrative act; the approval of the Comptroller's Office is required, there is responsibility on the part of the official in charge, and there is the possibility of complaints to the Comptroller's Office. In conclusion, it is pointed out that in reality, there is no injury to the constitutional norms and principles cited by the petitioner.

**6.-** Licenciada Rocío Aguilar Montoya, of legal age, married, Licenciada in Administration and in Law, resident of San José, identity card number one-five hundred fifty-six-zero forty, in her capacity as Comptroller General of the Republic, was also granted a hearing in this matter and stated the following: she points out that the existence of special procurement regimes is constitutionally acceptable when the contractual activity of a specific entity cannot be assimilated, basically due to the existence of certain contractual objects by virtue of their special relevance or sensitivity in the public sphere, and it is important to keep in mind these special conditions that make those rules valid, as is the case with matters related to national emergency, or direct procurement, or the medication system under discussion. The Comptroller adds that the rule that has been imposed by the Chamber is quite clear: for ordinary situations, ordinary rules and solutions; for exceptional situations, equally exceptional rules and solutions. The comptroller body also indicates that it must be clear that the special regime must respect, where pertinent, the constitutional principles of administrative procurement. It must also present elements of judgment that support the reasonableness of the classification of specialty given and the justice of exempting it from the general regime; the foregoing because creating atomizations is not permissible. Also, the regime must contain principles of control, transparency, and accountability, and there is a reservation of law in its creation. For the Comptroller, the medication acquisition regime meets all the above parameters to satisfaction, and it should be added, however, that while it is a special regime, insofar as it is not the ordinary one, the truth is that it must comply with a good number of rules regarding its object, rules, deadlines, and responsibilities. For this reason, we are not facing a direct summons procedure but a true competitive procedure (procedimiento concursal), exceptional and not ordinary insofar as it is not part of the General Law, that is, a particular modality of tender applied to the acquisition of certain highly and especially sensitive medications for human health and life, but one that essentially protects and covers the constitutional principles applicable to the matter, such as free competition and participation as well as equal treatment. The issue of the control of procedures deserves separate mention, and regarding them, the Comptroller's Office understands that what must be carried out is an approval process (trámite de refrendo) insofar as an examination is performed to verify the procedure's conformity with the legal system considered globally and in particular with the legal regulations applicable to said competitions. It is pointed out by the comptroller body that the petitioner complains about the impossibility of filing remedies before the Comptroller's Office in this case, but it turns out that if, as he himself points out, it is a special regime, then it makes no sense to ask for equalization in the remedy regime. If what is proposed were granted, the same rules would have to be applied without considering whether the procedure is ordinary or special. In particular, it is indicated, regarding prior control, this exists in ordinary procedures in a broad manner (public tender) or in a more restricted manner (registry tender or restricted tender). However, in those exceptional cases recognized by the legal system, there may be an attenuation of many principles that govern procurement, or even their non-application. Precisely in the case of medications, we are facing an attenuation of principles by reason of and in attention to the specialty and particularity of the object, which is absolutely clear to the Comptroller's Office. Finally, it is pointed out that it is not true that through the exclusion of challenge means, the exercise of control by the Comptroller's Office is limited, because its oversight faculties go far beyond such acts, such as the remedy of bid objection or the appeal of the final act. Regarding the point of the reasonableness of the rules, it must be said that the petitioner's entire argument is based not on the legal design but on the manner in which it has been implemented by the entity, so the questioning is not that the system is unreasonable in itself, but that the effects of its application, due to defects of the entity, are supposedly excessively detached from those sought by the legislator.

**7.-** The edicts referred to in the second paragraph of Article 81 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction were published in numbers 118, 119, and 120 of the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial), of the days seventeenth, eighteenth, and twenty-first of June, two thousand four (folio 82).

**8.-** The hearing indicated in Articles 10 and 85 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction is dispensed with, based on the power granted to the Chamber by numeral 9 ibidem, deeming this resolution sufficiently grounded in evident principles and norms, as well as in the jurisprudence of this Tribunal.

**9.-** In the procedures, the prescriptions of law have been complied with.

Drafted by Magistrate **Mora Mora**; and, **Considerando:** **I.- On admissibility.** This action of unconstitutionality is based on an amparo (recurso de amparo) that, under number 03-10187-0007-CO, was admitted by the Chamber and within which the petitioner was granted a deadline to file an action of unconstitutionality against the challenged norms. Therefore, and in view of the fact that the other established formal requirements have been met, it is appropriate to hear the claim on its merits as done hereafter.

**II.- Object of the challenge.** As can be inferred from the filing brief, the action is directed against Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, according to the text added by Law number 6914 of November twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred eighty-three, but only insofar as it allows purchases of medications to be made with the sole authorization of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, which is considered to affect the constitutional competencies of the indicated comptroller body in its oversight work of the Public Finance. Said legal rule contained in the questioned norm violates, as alleged, the right of access to administrative justice, the constitutionally established intervention powers of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, and the constitutional principle of control of procedures, besides the principle of reasonableness.

**III.- On the merits.** As noted supra, this action of unconstitutionality does not dispute the existence of a legislatively established special procurement regime for the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (hereinafter "the Fund" [La Caja]) to acquire certain categories of goods it needs to fulfill its function. The constitutionality problem arises for the petitioner from the manner in which the legislator has regulated such a special system on the specific point of the intervention possibilities of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, in its capacity as oversight entity of administrative procurement, and specifically regarding the remedy aspect which, he points out, is simply non-existent. The petitioner relies on jurisprudential citations from this constitutionality control body (998-98, 5947-98, and 2832-98 among others) from which he extracts the legal necessity that in the legislative design of all and any procurement system, mechanisms must be contemplated—to comply with the jurisprudentially established constitutional principles in the matter—that allow the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic a controlling intervention through the remedy channel in direct relation to the amount of the transaction, both in keeping with its constitutional functions, and because this results to be a required concretization of the right of challenge that citizens must have in this matter. For their part, both the Offices of the Attorney General and the Comptroller General of the Republic, as well as the Fund in its capacity as counterpart, oppose the claim and point out that the legislator has acted within the framework of its competencies in designing the special procurement system under discussion. They do recognize a drastic reduction in the remedy phase before the Comptroller's Office and, therefore, a reduction of its intervention in procurement processes, but they point out that this is legally appropriate and necessary for the satisfaction of the specific public interest involved. In this line of argument, they affirm that it cannot be lost sight of that the special procurement regime under discussion is for the purchase of medications included in the national formulary and other supplements closely related to people's health, such that what is at stake is the right to life of the inhabitants of the Republic, which in the judgment of the cited bodies constitutes sufficient justification, at the constitutional level, for the legislator to have opted, as it did, for the special procurement design that it finally established in the challenged regulation, which, even though it undeniably reduces the remedy means as indicated, does not thereby injure the constitutional principles cited by the petitioner, given that the legal system as a whole provides different but sufficient mechanisms to comply with the essence of the principle of control and transparency enshrined in our Political Constitution.

**IV.-** It is in ruling number 998-98 of eleven hours thirty minutes on February sixteenth, nineteen hundred ninety-eight, that this Chamber undertakes the task of systematizing the ideas and principles of constitutional standing that it had been recognizing over the years in matters of administrative procurement. In relation to the topic at hand, the following was stated there:

"VI. THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCUREMENT. (...) By virtue of the foregoing, it must be understood that from Article 182 of the Political Constitution, **all** the constitutional principles and parameters that govern the contractual activity of the State are derived. Some of these principles that guide and regulate the tender are: **(...)** and **10.- <u>of control of procedures</u>**, a principle by which all tasks of administrative procurement are subject to control and oversight for the sake of verifying, at least, the correct use of public funds. So it is necessary, throughout the administrative procurement procedure, to at least verify the following controls: **the legal one**, to verify that no entity or official performs any act or assumes behaviors that transgress the Law, carried out by verifying the prior existence of economic resources; **the accounting one**, which is the examination or judgment of the accounts of the dependencies and the officials who are in charge of administering State funds and goods, derived from the constant and systematic review of all operations that affect the budget appropriations approved by the Legislative Assembly or the Comptroller's Office, so that expenses have their financial backing and conform to the established classification, carried out by the budget control and accounting offices of each contracting entity or institution; **the financial one**, which consists of the oversight of the correct collection of income and the legality of public spending, within the competence of the institutions' own financial offices, the National Treasury, the Budget Office, and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic; and **the economic or results control**, which is carried out on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management, that is, on the results of said management, the determination of compliance with established goals and the optimal use of resources, a control that is carried out very partially by the institutions and has not been conceived as an effective instrument for managerial and institutional development." These principles are recognized both at the doctrinal and jurisprudential level, and have already been developed by this Court on repeated occasions and prior to this judgment, as follows: (...)"</p> <p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong>And later concludes:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"VIII.- INITIAL GENERAL CONCLUSION. Based on the foregoing considerations, it is evident, in the opinion of this Chamber, that the principles derived from Article 182 of the Political Constitution, and as such, of constitutional rank, have been widely and repeatedly confirmed by its own jurisprudence. But furthermore, that in that same direction, traditionally, since it came into operation, the Contraloría General de la República itself has protected them in the exercise of its constitutional functions, according to its own administrative precedents. By reason of the foregoing, it is concluded that the development, both by administrative and judicial jurisprudence, since the enactment of our Fundamental Charter in the year nineteen hundred and forty-nine, of the subject of administrative contracting, has been in that sense. But the above does not exclude a brief consideration regarding the motivation of the Law that is examined in these accumulated actions, concerning the so-called principle of efficiency of the State in the administration of public property: the Chamber admits, as it is logical to infer from the different manifestations that have occurred in the present case, that it is legislative policy to define the scope of administrative contracting systems, as a consequence derived from the text of Article 182 of the Political Constitution already discussed, in the sense that administrative contracting must be done through public bidding (licitación) <strong>"in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount".</strong> But this does not exclude that this Court, by reason of its essential function of being the guardian of the principle of constitutional supremacy, must examine the reasonableness and proportionality of the rules, to determine if they are in conformity with the essential principles already indicated. And as an initial general conclusion, which emanates from the examination of the principles, the doctrine, and the jurisprudence that have been set forth in the preceding recitals (considerandos), it can only be affirmed that the administrative contracting system is comprised, on the one hand, of the constitutional principles emanating from Article 182 of the Constitution itself, and on the other hand, as a complement, of the control system exercised directly by the constitutional body responsible for the oversight and vigilance of the Public Treasury, that is, the Contraloría General de la República, which is established as a guarantee of the correct use of public funds in the pursuit of satisfying the public interest. It is in light of these norms and principles that we proceed to analyze the reasonableness and proportionality of the challenged regulations, referring to the administrative contracting contained in the challenged Law and Regulation"</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">(...)</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">XIX.- THE CHALLENGE TO ARTICLE 84 OF THE LAW OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTING (Ley de Contratación Administrativa). The plaintiffs challenge Article 84 of the Law of Administrative Contracting, in that it establishes extremely high amounts for an appeal before the Contraloría General de la República to proceed, thereby marginalizing and completely destroying public bidding (licitación pública), in violation of Article 182 of the Constitution. In relation to this challenge, first of all, it must be remembered that, precisely from the conception of the material constitutional norm of Article 182 of the Fundamental Charter derive the principles that govern administrative contracting, and that consequently, are of mandatory observance, the control exercised directly by the Contraloría General de la República takes on special importance. Indeed, from the perspective of the right of appeal (derecho recursivo) recognized to every participant in a public administrative contracting competition, the challenged provision is the one that establishes the limits marking the milestone from which the award (adjudicación) can be appealed before the Contraloría General de la República, and it does so based on the amounts of the contracts. Since that right (to challenge) is contingent upon the amounts established in Article 27 of the same Law, Article 84 loses its legal support, since, as analyzed in recital XIII of this judgment, Article 27 of the Law, which was its legal support, is unconstitutional, so this other norm is evidently and manifestly unconstitutional. And it is so because, in a surreptitious manner, what is pursued is to ignore the principle of public order derived from Article 182 of the Constitution, that all contracting carried out by the State must be verified through public bidding (licitación), with all its consequences and the observance of all its principles, for which purpose a limitation is resorted to that, due to its exaggerated amounts, is disproportionate and unreasonable. With respect properly to the right to appeal, it should be noted that previously this Chamber has indicated that the principles informing due process are also obligatory in administrative procedures; thus, in judgment number 2130-94, at fourteen fifty-seven on May three, nineteen ninety-four, it stated:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&ldquo;[...]<em> the allegations of the plaintiff are unfounded. The national legal system establishes a wide range of fundamental procedural guarantees and principles, fully applicable not only in the jurisdictional sphere, <u>but also in every administrative procedure</u>, so that their non-observance causes absolute nullity, due to unconstitutionality, of all actions taken, especially in cases such as the present one, where the Administration is empowered by law to eliminate an act creating subjective rights - in this case, a concession - issued in favor of the administered party. Said principles and guarantees derive, in general, from Articles 39 and 41 of the Political Constitution, and more specifically from the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública), whose procedural principles, due to the special nature of the matter they regulate, are of mandatory observance. Among them, according to judgment number 15-90 at sixteen forty-five on January five, nineteen ninety, from this Chamber, are:</em></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><em>&laquo;... a) Notification to the interested party of the nature and purposes of the procedure; b) right to be heard, and opportunity for the interested party to present arguments and produce the evidence deemed pertinent; c) opportunity for the administered party to prepare their allegation, which necessarily includes access to information and administrative records linked to the matter in question; ch) right of the administered party to be represented and advised by lawyers, technicians, and other qualified persons; d) adequate notification of the decision issued by the Administration and the reasons on which it is based; and e) right of the interested party to appeal the decision issued...&raquo;</em>&rdquo;;</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">a criterion that has been reiterated by the jurisprudence of this Chamber (in this same sense, see judgment number 2360-94 at fifteen hours six minutes on May seventeen, nineteen ninety-four). Now, since appealing against administrative acts that harm us is a fundamental right, it is possible, and moreover necessary, to regulate the manner in which this right must be exercised, as indicated in judgment number 1420-91 at nine o'clock on July twenty-four, nineteen ninety-one:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&ldquo;<em>Indeed, the principle of reasonableness implies that the State may limit or restrict the abusive exercise of the right, but it must do so in such a way that the legal norm conforms in all its elements, such as the motive and the purpose it pursues, to the objective sense contemplated in the Constitution.</em>&rdquo;</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">Note that what has been admitted is only the regulation of this right, so that it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right impossible or nugatory; and in this case, it must not be forgotten that the exhaustion of administrative remedies is a requirement of admissibility to be able to access the jurisdictional route, specifically the contentious-administrative route. By reason of the foregoing, it is thus feasible to conclude that the speed (celeridad) of administrative contracting procedures must be secured through means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and unerring justice, so that <u>the possibilities of appeal (posibilidades recursivas) for participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited</u>. (...) In this sense, it must not be forgotten that the control of bidding (licitación) procedures constitutes an essential principle of administrative contracting, precisely in the pursuit of protecting and guaranteeing the public interest regarding the verification and oversight of the correct use of public funds. The foregoing principle was confirmed by this Chamber in judgment number 2514-93 at nine hours six minutes on June four, nineteen ninety-three, in which it considered that the power granted to the administration to declare competitions void (desiertos) is not unconstitutional, but the denial of appeals against the award resolutions (resoluciones adjudicatorias) of public biddings (licitaciones públicas) would be, in the following terms:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&ldquo;<em>Pursuant to Article 9 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional), this action must be rejected on the merits, since Article 131 of the Regulation of Administrative Contracting (Reglamento de la Contratación Administrativa) allows the ex officio revocation or nullity of the act declaring a competition void (desierto), but does not grant any recourse <u>to non-jurisdictional bodies</u> to the potentially affected parties, a regulation that <u>per se</u> does not infringe the fundamental principles of due process nor those informing free competition and transparency inherent in administrative contracting, as it could not be affirmed that participants in a public bidding (licitación) have a fundamental right that it not be declared void, or that the law provide for a recourse <u>at the administrative level to challenge that declaration</u>, and in any event, as will be stated, the legal system provides a legal remedy to challenge the final decision rendered in &laquo;any public bidding (licitación) of the State&raquo;; declaring it void entails the exercise of a discretionary power of the bidding body that this Chamber could not substitute. It must be established that the denial of appeals against resolutions awarding a public bidding (licitación pública) would indeed be grounds for protection, as it would violate due process since once a public bidding is awarded - unlike the act declaring it void - it can be affirmed that participants have a fundamental right that the point be examined by the Contraloría General de la República, because the legal transaction has been concluded with economic significance for the Administration and for the participants, whereas the declaration of voidness does not preclude the competition from being convened again.</em>&rdquo;</p> <p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;V.- </strong>On the basis of such principles, this court had the opportunity to pronounce even more specifically regarding the fundamental right to appeals (recursos) in this matter and the participation of the Contraloría in them, when it declared a norm unconstitutional for establishing excessively high economic parameters that made the right to appeal nugatory in a good number of contracts and because the competence to hear any appeals was transferred to another body other than the Contraloría General de la República. Thus, it was stated:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong>"VII.- (...) On that occasion [judgment number 998-98 just cited] it reiterated that the principles informing due process are also of obligatory application in administrative procedures, so it is not possible to establish any type of obstacle that unreasonably hinders access to administrative justice, or makes this right nugatory; so that the speed (celeridad) of administrative contracting procedures must be secured through means that do not violate fundamental rights, such as the right of defense and access to prompt, complete, and unerring justice, so that the possibilities of appeal (posibilidades recursivas) for participants in competitions promoted by the Administration cannot be excessively or irrationally inhibited. In attention to the foregoing, the first unconstitutionality of this paragraph is concluded, since by having established such high thresholds (topes) for the applicability of public bidding (licitación pública), the first paragraph of Article 171 of the Central Bank Law (Ley del Banco Central), previously declared unconstitutional, makes access to the appeal (recurso de apelación) difficult or impossible. The second unconstitutionality of this provision must be considered in attention to what was stated in the preceding recital (VI.), regarding the functions and competencies proper to the Contraloría General de la República; so that the hearing of appeals with improper hierarchical superiority against the award acts (actos de adjudicación) agreed upon by the banks of the national banking system, form part of the oversight powers exercised by the Contraloría in the vigilance of the public treasury, in accordance with constitutional norms and principles, which the ordinary legislator cannot limit nor distort.(...)" (judgment 1998-05947 at fourteen hours thirty-two minutes on August nineteen, nineteen ninety-eight.)</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The foregoing thesis, however, was delimited in its broad scope by the Chamber itself when analyzing the specific issue of the difference in appeal regimes (regímenes recursivos) and the participation of the Contraloría General de la República in registry-based biddings (licitaciones por registro) and restricted ones. On that occasion, the following was stated:</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"III.- Although these norms were not analyzed in a particularized manner in judgment number 0998-98, at eleven hours thirty minutes on February sixteen of this year, the truth is that a series of principles were established therein, specifically regarding the characteristics that the restricted and registry-based biddings (licitaciones restringidas and por registro) contained in the Law of Administrative Contracting may have, which are fundamental for resolving the issue.- Specifically, the following was stated (..)</p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IV.- Based on the principles established in the transcribed judgment [referring to judgment number 998-98 cited above], it is concluded that the challenged norms do not violate Articles 39, 41, and 183 of the Political Constitution.- According to what the law provides after the variations effected by the Chamber's judgment just cited, the restricted bidding (licitación restringida) and the registry-based bidding (licitación por registro), are modalities of contracting that correspond to what was previously known as "private bidding (licitación privada)", so that, under such conditions, it is constitutionally admissible for the challenge regime (régimen impugnatorio) to differ from that defined for public bidding (licitación pública) because these are precisely special, sufficiently regulated situations, in which, according to the constitutional doctrine set forth in the preceding recitals (considerandos), the participation of the Contraloría General de la República can be moderated, especially considering the extensive regulation that such bidding processes (restricted bidding and registry-based bidding) currently have compared to their predecessor, the private bidding (licitación privada).- As a conclusion, the alleged infringement of the right of access to administrative justice does not exist, because the possibility of review of the actions taken exists in the discussed norms, and neither is the control regime that Article 183 grants to the Contraloría General de la República disrespected."</p> <p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong>Finally, it is important to note that in judgment number 13910-2005 at fifteen hours four minutes on October eleven, two thousand five, the Chamber confirmed all the ideas set forth above and determined, on the one hand, the validity of the attenuation of the principles of administrative contracting in certain processes of the ordinary contracting system (restricted bidding and registry-based bidding) and defined, on the other hand, also the necessity and constitutional validity of the so-called direct contracting (contratación directa) as a necessary exception to complete the administrative contracting system in the case of situations where the use of ordinary bidding means of any kind would put at risk the achievement of the pursued public purpose.</p> <p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;VI.- </strong>The plaintiff's thesis in this case is essentially based on the described precedents, and maintains that the special contracting procedure at the center of this action prevents the governed parties from challenging acts such as the bidding terms (cartel de licitación) or the award (adjudicación) before the Contraloría, this without distinction in the amount of the transaction, thereby - just as in the described precedents- unreasonably and clearly unconstitutionally limiting the right to appeal harmful decisions in public biddings (licitaciones públicas) - that is, those possessing a certain amount and an extensive process - which has been required by the Chamber. The public entities appearing in this process affirm that since the attenuation of the principles of administrative contracting is constitutionally admissible in certain cases, the legislator has not acted wrongly when designing in the discussed regulation a particular contracting system, which is characterized - in what is relevant here - by a reduction of the guarantees regarding appeals (garantías recursivas), if such legislative action of attenuation is based on the need to protect a good of constitutional rank such as people's health. However, for the Chamber, this line of reasoning contradicts Article 182 of the Constitution, which, as has been stated, serves as a basis for the development of the principles of the administrative contracting system, since in that provision, public bidding (licitación) is adopted as the normal means of contracting "in accordance with the law regarding the respective amount", whereby the Constitution's framers opted for the amount as a discriminating parameter in the design of diverse types of administrative contracting processes, which, according to the amount, may have diverse regulations, but always respecting in its essence the right of the Constitution. Thus, with the exception of the amount, our constitutional text does not expressly recognize any other parameter for the application of an attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to administrative contracting.</p> <p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;VII.- </strong>It could be understood, however, that even if it does not appear expressly contemplated in the constitutional text, it is legally necessary to recognize a non-express, but tacitly established constitutional authorization, to distinguish bidding mechanisms with different degrees of requirements, insofar as, as argued, certain public purposes are incompatible with normal contracting processes. For this body, that is exactly what occurred with a special type of administrative contracting process called direct contracting (contratación directa), on whose nature the cited judgment 13910-05 elaborated, precisely in the sense that, although it is not covered in Article 182 of the Constitution, it is a necessary instrument to attend to certain contracting needs that, due to their special characteristics, cannot be subjected to ordinary bidding processes (specifically public bidding, registry-based bidding, and restricted bidding). However, for the Chamber, this is not the case of the challenged regulation either, for two fundamental reasons: the first, of a procedural type, consists of noting that the design of the contracting system questioned in this action is basically built on the concept of a competition or public bidding (licitación). Briefly, it is observed that: <strong>a) </strong>there exists a predefined set or catalog of technical specifications (fichas técnicas) that thoroughly describe the conditions and determining elements of the products that at some point will be bid. Such catalog is updated and revised regularly for its improvement according to what the Caja reports, so that future participants and any interested party can know in advance the precise characteristics of the object of the competition; <strong>b)</strong> the body in charge of contracting also has a registry in which interested suppliers have previously registered according to each product and its technical specification (ficha técnica), and it is based on such Registry that the call to competition is made, in which, as all entities indicate, it must be understood as required that a call will be made <strong>to all </strong>registered suppliers; <strong>c)</strong> the offers submitted are evaluated on an equal footing and the choice must be made according to conditions of quality and price, and; <strong>d)</strong> the actions within this regime have - as also expressed by the three entities - a variety of means of challenge (medios de impugnación), and specifically the Caja affirms that the supplier registry, the technical specification, and the award act (acto de adjudicación) can be discussed and challenged by the individual before the Caja as the active administration, through the means of challenge (medios impugnatorios) contained in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de Administración Pública). All of the foregoing establishes for the Chamber that, as explained, the purchase of goods through the challenged mechanism clearly conforms to a competition or - in the words of our Constitution's framers - a public bidding (licitación) and not a direct contracting (contratación directa), which, as indicated, starts precisely from the opposite notion, that is, the impossibility or high unsuitability of using ordinary bidding means to achieve the public purpose. The second reason is closely related to the characteristics of the public purpose pursued by this contracting system, and which both the public entities and the Chamber itself understand to be the appropriate healthcare for the people served by the Caja, an interest which the institutions defending the norm do not demonstrate to be incompatible per se and in every case, with the characteristics of bidding procedures, if instead this Court understands that it is perfectly possible, in a good number of cases, for the normal means of contracting, appropriately employed and with due foresight, to produce the inventory of medications and other medical material suitable for meeting the entity's normal needs in that aspect. Viewed from this perspective, the truth is that the needs for medications and products indicated in the law under discussion for the healthcare of people by an institution like the Caja, dedicated to that task, are, as a general rule, predictable, based on a minimum organization and recording of statistics and events, while the attention to unavoidable unforeseen events and other emerging situations can clearly be addressed precisely through the mechanisms of direct contracting (contratación directa), legally existing in the legal system and created for that specific purpose. In this latter sense, it is important to recall the Chamber's jurisprudence on the modulation of public powers arising from emergency situations.</p> In this regard, when analyzing Articles 2 and 80 of the Law on Administrative Procurement, it was stated that: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“… But furthermore, it is pertinent to note that the idea of a treatment different from the ordinary in the face of exceptional situations is neither novel nor strange, and it even appears reflected (although for other scenarios) in our Political Constitution, which in Article 180 states that: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><strong><em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Article 180.-</span></em></strong></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The ordinary budget and the extraordinary budgets constitute the limit of action of the Public Powers for the use and disposition of State resources, and they may only be modified by laws initiated by the Executive Power.</span></em></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Any modification project that implies an increase or creation of expenses must be subject to the provisions of the preceding article.</span></em></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, when the Assembly is in recess, the Executive Power may vary the purpose of an authorized budget line, or open additional credits, but only to satisfy urgent or unforeseen needs in cases of war, internal unrest, or public calamity. In such cases, the Comptroller’s Office may not deny its approval to the ordered expenses and the respective decree shall imply the convening of the Legislative Assembly to extraordinary sessions for its consideration.”</span></em></p> <p style="text-indent: 36.85pt; margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">This would then concern clearly exceptional situations that judgment number 3410-1992 of fourteen hours forty-five minutes on the tenth of November of nineteen ninety-two had occasion to define as: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“…manifestations of what is known in Public Law doctrine as <strong>"state of necessity and urgency", by virtue of the principle "salus populi suprema lex est", understanding that the weaker legal interest (the conservation of the normal order of legislative powers) must yield to the stronger legal interest (the conservation of the legal and social order, which, on occasions, does not allow waiting for a law to be processed and approved);</strong> and in Criminal Law, as "state of necessity", that is, <strong>"a situation of danger for a legal interest, which can only be saved through the violation of another legal interest"</strong>. And this is the same sense of the text of constitutional Article 180.”</span></em></p> <p style="text-indent: 36.85pt; margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">In this way, neither the regulation nor the law are novel in recognizing and leaving open the possibility of exempting ordinary procurement procedures in the face of groups of situations that by their condition: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“…<em>must be understood within the strictest definition of force majeure or, at most, of fortuitous event, that is, events that come from nature, such as earthquakes and floods, or from human action, such as popular riots, invasions and war, or from the human condition itself, such as epidemics, events that are surprising and unforeseeable, or although foreseeable, unavoidable; (…) of abnormal situations that cannot be controlled, managed, or dominated with the ordinary measures available to the Government. (Judgment 3410-1992) </em></span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> To this, it would be fitting to add now that in Law number 8511 of the sixteenth of May of two thousand six, although it eliminated the urgency from the recently cited Article 2, it instead added an Article 2 bis which, in its pertinent part, states: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> “Article 2 bis <strong>Authorizations</strong>. The following cases authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic are excluded from the competitive bidding procedures established in this Law: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">(…) </span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm .0001pt 36.85pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">c) Other activities or specific cases in which sufficient reasons are accredited to consider that it is the only way to achieve the due satisfaction of the general interest or to avoid damages or injuries to public interests” </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> The foregoing is without prejudice to the fact that, as was also stated, Article 80 of the cited Law expressly contemplates, for cases of urgency, the lifting of some or all of the formalities of administrative procurement. In such form, it is clear that the protection of health does not always entail that element of urgency, rush, or unforeseen situation that the appearing public entities seem to appreciate; it is also clear, moreover, that sufficient constitutional and legal support exists to sustain the waiver of procurement procedures in the handling of urgencies and emergencies that so merit it, for which reason the thesis that it is necessary to recognize the existence in this case of another constitutional authorization and justification for an attenuation of the constitutional principles of control of administrative procurement is not admissible to this Chamber. </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <strong>VIII. </strong>A different line of argumentation to analyze the constitutionality of the challenged regulations is implicit in the briefs of the aforementioned institutions and consists of understanding that the challenged regulations reflect the weighing carried out by the legislator between two constitutional principles, namely, on one hand, the right to life and public health, and on the other, the principles and values that enshrine the right to challenge harmful acts enjoyed by the administered party and also those that impose the existence of means of control over public actions, particularly those related to the public treasury and attributed in our constitutional environment to the Comptroller General of the Republic. This would be, in this specific case, a discussion regarding the apparent interference and superposition between the scopes and reaches of the right to life and public health, which oblige the State, and in this case the Legislative Power, to take the necessary and appropriate measures to ensure that it is fulfilled for the benefit of citizens, against the principles—developed essentially by the jurisprudence of this Chamber—that oblige the authorities and—again—specifically the legislator, to take the pertinent and necessary measures so that interested citizens have the possibility to exercise control over the actions of public bodies, in relation to the procurements carried out with public funds, a control that is primarily to be carried out through the intervention as an improper hierarchical superior by the Comptroller General of the Republic. At this point, the Chamber considers that the contradiction is more apparent than real: as indicated in the preceding considerando, legally and within the framework of the law of the Constitution, a demarcation of fields of action is plausible that allows both sets of principles (health on one part and administrative procurement on the other) a broad development without interference. In particular, the Chamber considers that the system of administrative procurement, viewed in its totality and with the application of its principles just as they are outlined, permits and makes possible, without interference, appropriate protection of the right to health and life of citizens, without this requiring or implying a diminution or attenuation of the constitutional principles relating to administrative procurement, just as the intervening institutions indeed maintain, and as is effectively regulated in the discussed regulations. It will suffice for this purpose to apply the demarcation and the criteria that this Chamber has been defining over time so that, as the Comptroller’s Office indicates, "...ordinary solutions are applied to ordinary situations and extraordinary solutions to extraordinary situations...", it being the case that for this Tribunal, the regulations err by establishing, with respect to the appeals and control system, an extraordinary-situation treatment for procurement processes that lack such condition and that—with regard to the appeals and control system by the Comptroller’s Office—perfectly withstand compliance with the provisions of the ordinary procurement system, with its rules and criteria defined according to the amount and adhering to the Law of the Constitution. </span></p> <p><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> XIX. Conclusion and dimensioning.- </span></strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">From all of the foregoing, it is concluded that the challenged law is indeed unconstitutional, but solely and exclusively with respect to the limitation of the appeals regime and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic established in the special procurement procedure contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, added by Law number 6914 of the twenty-eighth of November of nineteen eighty-three. The unconstitutionality originates in the phrase “with the sole authorization of the Comptroller General of the Republic” of the cited article, which the Chamber considers contains an infringement of the principles of administrative procurement, because although in the subject matter of procurement through this special procedure, people's health is at stake, that fact alone does not make it constitutionally admissible, that always and in every case, the procurements must be carried out to the exclusion of the control means that are normally established, according to the amount, for the procurements carried out by state institutions. Rather, to the contrary, the Chamber understands that people's health can be served equally well without harming other constitutional rights, simply by eliminating the phrase indicated above, so that it is understood that the challenged regulations only substitute the ordinary system, </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">insofar as a specific and different procedure is set, but that, with respect to the appeals aspects and the intervention of the Comptroller’s Office, it is the provisions established in the ordinary procurement system that must be followed, all according to the amount of the transaction. With the foregoing, it must also be understood that the Fund retains the open possibility to resort to direct procurement procedures in the exceptional cases established and with respect for the fixed processes, so that through that route the extraordinary situations that threaten to damage people's health and—demonstrably—cannot be resolved by the application of ordinary general or special procedures can be covered. By virtue of the provisions of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, this ruling has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of entry into force of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. However, in accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect the procurements formalized and finalized, nor those that are in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this ruling in the Judicial Bulletin. Given the particular nature of the declaration of unconstitutionality established herein, which seeks to remedy an act of exclusion established unconstitutionally, the proper course is to link the special procedure established in Articles 71 and 72 of the challenged Law with the provisions of the Law on Administrative Procurement, number 7494, amended by Law number 7612, and with what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of the current year, all of the foregoing, as indicated, with exclusive reference to the appeals regime and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic, established therein, according to the amount of the transaction. Justices Armijo Sancho and Cruz Castro dissent and declare the action without merit based on the reasons they set forth. </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <strong>XX. </strong>Justices Vargas and Cruz dissent and declare the action without merit. </span></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Por tanto</span></strong></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> The action is granted, and consequently, the phrase "may be carried out with the sole authorization of the Comptroller General of the Republic" contained in Article 72 of the Constitutive Law of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, added by Law number 6914 of the twenty-eighth of November of nineteen eighty-three, is annulled as unconstitutional. This ruling has declaratory and retroactive effects to the date of entry into force of the annulled provision, without prejudice to rights acquired in good faith. In accordance with the provisions of Article 91 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction, the effects are dimensioned in the sense that the declared unconstitutionality does not affect the procurements formalized and finalized, nor those that are in the process of execution, prior to the publication of the full text of this ruling in the Judicial Bulletin. By virtue of the ordered declaration, and with respect to the appeals regime and the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic, the Costa Rican Social Security Fund must apply the provisions of the Law on Administrative Procurement, number 7494, amended by Law number 7612, and what is indicated in judgment number 0998-98, of eleven hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February of the current year, as appropriate according to the amount of the transaction. Let this pronouncement be summarized in the Official Gazette La Gaceta and published in full in the Judicial Bulletin. Let this pronouncement be communicated to the Legislative and Executive Powers, to the Comptroller General of the Republic, and the Costa Rican Social Security Fund. Notify. </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Ana Virginia Calzada M. </span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Presidenta a.i. </span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Luis Paulino Mora M. Adrián Vargas B. </span></strong></p> <p><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></strong></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Gilbert Armijo S. Ernesto Jinesta L. </span></strong></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> <p><strong><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Fernando Cruz C. Jorge Araya G. </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></p> </div>

*040049030007CO* gaguilara gaguilara 2 0 2007-12-04T22:14:00Z 2007-12-04T22:14:00Z 2 9470 52091 Poder Judicial 434 122 61439 11.6568 BestFit 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 *040049030007CO* Res. Nº 2007-001557 SALA CONSTITUCIONAL DE LA CORTE SUPREMA DE JUSTICIA. San José, a las quince horas treinta y seis minutos del siete de febrero de dos mil siete.

Acción de inconstitucionalidad promovida por Aldo Milano Sánchez, mayor, casado, abogado, vecino de San Rafael de Monts de Oca, cédula de identidad número 1-688-989, en su condición de apoderado especial judicial de la empresa Pfizer, Sociedad Anónima en contra del artículo 72 de la Ley Constituva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro social, adicionado mediante la Ley número 6914 del veintiocho de noviembre de mil novecientos ochenta y tres. Intervienen también en este proceso, Farid Beirute Brenes, como Procurador Ajunto, Rodrigo Coredero Fernández y Judith Reyes Cstillo en representación de la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social y Rocío Aguilar Montoya, en su calidad de Contralora General de la República.

Resultando:

1.- Por escrito recibido en la Secretaría de la Sala a las trece horas cinco minutos del veintiséis de mayo de dos mil cuatro, el accionante solicita que se declare la inconstitucionalidad del artículo 72 de la Ley Constituva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro social, adicionado mediante la Ley número 6914 pues alega que luego de la reforma esetablecida al citado artículo por la ley número 6914, se incorporó al ordenamiento jurídico un tipo especial de procedimiento de contratatación al que puede recurrir la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social para la compra de algunos medicamentos. Afirma que la empresa que representa es justamente proveedor de medicamentos para la citada institución y que en tal condición debe participar dentro de tal procedimento de contratación especial que padece varios defectos que lo convierten en inconstitucional. Señala que en lo fundamental el procedimiento esablecido por el artículo impugnado califica como una modalidad del género de las contrataciones directas por lo que los principios del numeral 182 Constitucional pasan a segundo plano, al ser desplazados por un procedimento como el de contratación directa que usualmente es empleado solo a manera de excepción. Las consecuencias, más claramente contradictorias con el artículo 182 Constitucional y sus principios son, según el accionante, que independientemente de la cuantía del negocio no es posible entablar recursos de objeción del cartel ante la Contraloría, y tampaoco puede establecerse recurso de apelación contra el acto de adjudicación ante el citado órgano, amén de que la única intervención fiscalizadora del órgano contralor consiste en emitir una autorización para el acto de adjudicación en cinco días, también sin que se tome en cuenta la cuantía del negocio. Afirma el accionante que tales consecuencias de la norma impugnada contravienen claramente principios constitucionales establecidos por la Sala para la contratación administrativa, y concretamente los siguientes: a) el derecho fundamental de recurrir ante un órgano imparcial, actos de adjudicación de cmpras de la administración de especial importancia cuantitativa y cualitativa, recogido y aplicado por el contralor de constitucionalidad en distintas sentencias, señaladamente en las resoluciones 998-98 y 2832-98 de la Sala Constitucional; b) la noción de intangibilidad para el legislador ordinario de las potestades de fiscalización de la Hacienda ública por parte del órgano contralor, recogidas en la Carta Fundamental, y que la Sala Constitucional ha tenido oportunidad de describir y delimitar por ejemplo en la sentencia número 2430-94, así como en la misma sentencias números 998-98 y 5947-98 entre otras. c) el principio de control de los procedmientos respecto del que la la Sala ha sido consistente en su jurisprudencia al señalarlo como un parámetro de constitucionalidad al momento de analizar normativa relacionada con contratación administrativa. En conclusión, estas tres nociones que la Sala ha establecido como formando parte del haber constituicional en la materia de contratación administrativa, se ve seriamente amenazados cuando no eliminados del todo por parte del artículo 72 cuestionado en tanto, se impone legislativamente un procedimiento que desconoce la aplicación de principios esenciales, sin estarse en ninguna de las excepciones que también la Sala ha permitido, tomando en cuenta diversos factores. Señala el accionante que en el caso en cuestión, nos encontramos con contrataciones administrativas ordinarias de toda cuantía, que por el mero arbitrio del legislador han sido excluidas de las reglas generales y de los princpios constitucionales que regulan el tema, lo cual es inaceptable a la luz del Derecho de la Constitución..

2.- Por resolución de las trece horas cincuenta minutos del primero de junio de dos mil cuatro, (visible a folios 46 frente y vuelto del expediente), se le dio curso a la acción, confiriéndole audiencia a la Procuraduría General de la República y al Presidente Ejeuctivo de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social.

3.- Por resolución de las trece horas cicnuenta minutos del trece de julio de dos mil seis, (visible a folio 265 del expediente) se confirió audiencia a la Contraloría General de la República.

4.- Farid Beirute Brenes, mayor casado abogado, vecino de San José, cédula de identidad número 1-394-673, en su calidad de Procurador General Adjunto, se apersona a contestar la audiencia conferida a su representada y señala que en su criterio, por razones de interés público el legislador decidió establecer un procedimiento especial para determinadas compras por parte de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, lo cual no es extraño dado que es aceptado la existencia de un trato particularizado para las compras de medicamentos por ser fundamentales para la salud. Para la Procuraduría, el procedimiento impugnado, recogido en el artículo 72 de la Ley discutida, no establece una contratación directa, cuya naturaleza efectivamente sería excepcional, sino sus disposiciones hacen que se asemeje mucho más a la llamada licitación por registro. Se indica que para comprar medicamentos se promueve un concurso entre los interesados incscritos en un registro y no es dable entender que existe discrecionaldiad para pedir cotizaciones a quienes se quiera sino que cabe entender que se debe invitar a todos los registrados. Debe recordarse que el procedimiento cuestionado se insertaba como especial frente al establecido en la Ley de Administración Financiera y desde tal perspectiva no podía decirse que se tratara de una trámite de contratación directa. Asi, el procedimiento excepciona frente a la lictación pública, pues se aplica a cualquier monto y se diferencia de la licitación privada porque protege mejor la concurrencia. Afirma la Procuraduría que el artículo 182 Constitucional afirma la posibilidad de que el legislador establezca tipos de licitiación y la administración no sea obligada a tramitar exclusivamente licitaciones públicas. Lo que debe rescatarse y protegerse es la aplicación y verificación en los procesos de contratación de los principios esenciales del concurso entre los cuales se encuentran la publicidad, la concurrencia, la igualdad de oportunidades y transprencia. Estos elementos deben ser principal objeto de control, el cual no puede ser formal por parte de las autoridades o de la Contraloría y menos aún en un control de "legalidad formal" como parece desprenderse de resoluciones de esa Contraloría. En buena tesis la participación de la Contraloría a través de una autorización que se da luego de agotado el trámite por la administración, debe incluir el control no solo del acto de adjudicación sino de todo el procedimiento. Respecto del la razonabilidad del procedimiento de contratación se cuestiona que se haya definido un procedimiiento irrazonable, como lo prueba el hecho de que la Caja continúe contratando con citación directa la compra de mediamentos pues los plazos de la ley especial no se respetan por las propias autoridades. Sin embargo, lo cierto es que el hecho de que el medio no sea el más idóneo no quiere decir que sea inconstitucional. A ello se suma el hecho de que la irrazonabilidad vendría dada por la actuación de las autoridades y no del diseño en sí. Se reclama la ausencia de un apropiado control de la contratación administrativa pues no existe recuso de objeción al cartel y apelación contra el acto de adjudicación ante la Contraloría con lo que se viola el derecho a la justicia admnistrativa. Para la Procuraduría debe recordarse que si bien la apelación de los particulares a resoluciones que los afecten forma parte del debido proceso, ello no obliga a que sea la Contraloría la que deba conocer. Sostener la necesidad de participación de la Contraloría es desconocer el caráter sistémico del ordenamiento jurídico, pues cabe recordar que antes de 1996 la objeción al cartel y la apelación ante la Contraloría no se reconocían para procesos diferentes de la licitación pública y como se dijo, de cualquier forma se entiende que los actos de adjudicación están sujetos a revisión sino que tal acto se regula por la Ley de Administración pública y con sus formalidades. También señala la Procuraduría que la supuesta infracción del control de la contratación administrativa que tiene rango constitucional no se pone en peligro como lo afirma el accionante porque tales actividades exceden claramente la intervención a través de la resolución de recursos planteados por los particulares.interesados. Por ejemplo, las labores de fiscalización incluyen auditorías, investigación de temas especiales, etc.Así, no podría nadie entender nunca que el procedimiento establecido en la Ley discutida es menos posible de controlar porque no recoge los recursos de objeción al cartel y objeción al acto de adjudicación ante la Contraloría. Lo cierto es que al ser temas que afectan la hacienda pública estas contrataciones entran de lleno en el ámbito de competencias establecido para la Contraloría, todo lo anterior sin perjuicio del control o autorización que caso a caso debe dar la Contraloría para las contrataciones, requisito sin el cual no puede llevarse a cabo.

5.- Rodrigo Coredero Fernández y Judith Reyes Castillo, ambos mayores, abogados y vecinos de San José, casado dos veces y con cédula número uno-trescientos veinticinco- novecientos cincuenta y siete, el primero; casada y cédula de identidad uno-ochocientos ochenta y seis-trescientos treinta y uno, se apersonaron en representación de la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social La Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social a contestar la audiencia concedida y señalan que en su criterio la Ley impugnada se ajusta en todo al ordenamiento jurídico constitucional, pues lo que se buscó siempre fue establecer un mecanismo de compra de mediacamentos y materia prima que fuese más ágil a raíz de que la Caja asumió los Hospitales del país. Agregan que la ley impugnada establece medios de impugnación especiales para sustituir a los establecidos por la ley de Contratación. Ello se aprecia, en la confección de un registro de elegibles, en la llamada fichas técnicas que se publican en la Gaceta; además se admiten todos los recursos ordinarios cual si fuera un acto administrativo normal; se requiere la aprobación de la Contraloría, existe responsabilidad del funcionario encargado y existe la posiblidad de denuncias ante la Contraloría. En conclusión, se señala que en realidad no existe ninguna lesión a las normas y principios constitucinonales señalados por el accionante.

6.- La Licenciada Rocío Aguilar Montoya, mayor, casada, Licenciada en Administración y en Derecho, vecina de San José, cédula de identidad número uno-quinientos cincuenta y seis-cero cuarenta, en su carácter de Contralora General de la República, le fue concedida también audiencia en este asunto y se manifestó de la siguiente manera: señala que es constitucionalmente aceptable la existencia de regímenes especiales de contratación cuando la actividad contractual de determinado ente no puede asimilarse básicamente por la existencia de ciertos objetos contractuales en virtud de su especial relevancia o sensibilidad en el ámbito de lo públco y es importante tener presentes estas condiciones especiales que hacen válidas esas reglas como es el caso de los asuntos relacionados con emergencia nacional o bien la contratación directa o el sistema de medicamentos que se discute. Agrega la Contralora que la regla que ha sido impuesta por la Sala es por demás clara: a situaciones ordinarias reglas y soluciones ordinarias, a situaciones excepcionales reglas y soluciones igualmente excepcionales. También indica el organo contralor que debe quedar claro que el régimen especial debe respetar en lo pertinente los principios constitucionales de la contratación administrativa. También debe presentar elementos de juicio que sostengan la razonabilidad de la calificación de especialidad dada y la justicia de excepcionarlo del régimen general; lo anterior porque no es dable crear atomizaciones. También el régimen debe contener principos de control trasnparencia y rendición de cuentas y existe reserva de ley en su creación. Para la Contralora el régimen de adquisición de medicamentos cumple a satisfacción todos los anteriores parámetros y cabe agregar no obstante que se trata de un régimen especial, en tanto no es el ordinario, lo cierto es que tiene que cumplir con una buena cantidad de reglas respecto de su objeto, reglas, plazos y responsabilidades. Por esta razón no estamos frente a un procedimiento de citación directa sino ante un verdadero procedimiento concursal, ecepcional y no ordinario en tanto no forma parte de la Ley general es dedcir una modalidad particlar de licitación aplicada a la adquisición de ciertos medicamentos alta y especialmente sensibles para la salud y la vida humana, pero que en lo esencial protege y cubre los principios constitucionales aplicables a la materia como lo son libre concurrencia y participación asíc omo trato igualitario. Mención aparte merece el tema del control de los procedimientos y respecto de ellos la contraloría entiende que lo que cabe cumplir es un tramite de refrendo en tanto se realiza un examen de ajuste del procedimiento tramitado con el ordenamiento jurídico globalmente considerado y en particular con la normativa legal aplicable a dichos concursos. Se señala por parte del órgano contralor que el accionante reclama contra la imposibilidad de presentar recursos ante la contraloría en este caso pero resulta que, si como él mismo lo señala se trata de un régimen especial entonces no tiene sentido que pida una igualación en el régimen recursivo. Si se accede a lo planteado se habrían de aplicar las mismas reglas sin atender al hecho de que el procedimiento sea ordinario o especial. En particular, se indica, rrespecto del control previo éste exite en los procedimientos ordinarios de manera amplia (licitación pública) o bien más restringida (licitación por registro o restringida. Sin embargo, en aquellos supuestos de excepción reconocidos por el ordenamiento puede existir una atenuación de muchos principios que norman la contratación o incluso la no aplicación de ellos. Justamente en el caso de medicamentos estamos frente a una atenuación de principios por razón y en atención a la especialidad y particularidad del objeto, lo cual es absolutamente claro para la Contraloría. Finalmente se señala que no es cierto que a través de la exclusión de medios de impugnación se limite el ejercicio de control por parte de l contraloría pues las facultades de fiscalización van mucho más allá de tales actos como son el recurso de objeción al cartel o la apelación del acto final. En cuanto al punto de la razonabilidad de las normas cabe decir que todo el alegato del accionante está basado no en el diseño legal sino en la forma en que ha sido puesto en ejecución por aprte de la entidad de manera que el cuestionamiento no es que el sistema sea irrazonable en sí mismo sino que los efectos de sus aplicación, por defectos de la entidad, son supuestamente excesivamente desapegados de los buscados por el legislador.

7.- Los edictos a que se refiere el párrafo segundo del artículo 81 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional fueron publicados en los números 118,119 y120 del Boletín Judicial, de los días diecisiete, dieciocho y veintiuno de junio de dos mil cuatro (folio 82 ).

8.- Se prescinde de la vista señalada en los artículos 10 y 85 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional, con base en la potestad que otorga a la Sala el numeral 9 ibidem, al estimar suficientemente fundada esta resolución en principios y normas evidentes, así como en la jurisprudencia de este Tribunal.

9.- En los procedimientos se han cumplido las prescripciones de ley.

Redacta el Magistrado Mora Mora; y,

Considerando:

I.- Sobre la admisibilidad. Esta acción de inconstitucionalidad se funda en un recurso de amparo que bajo el número 03-10187-0007-CO, fue admitido por la Sala y dentro del cual se le otorgó al accionante plazo para que planteara acción de inconstitucionalidad en contra de las normas impugnadas. Por ello y en vista de que se han cumplido los demás requisitos formales establecidos, lo procedente es conocer el reclamo por el fondo como se hace de seguido..

II.- Objeto de la impugnación. Según se desprende del escrito de interposición, la acción se dirige contra el artículo 72 de la Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, según texto adicionado por la Ley número 6914 de veintiocho de noviembre de mil novecientos ochenta y tres, pero únicamente en cuanto permite realizar compras de medicamentos con la sola autorización de la Contraloría General de la República, lo cual se estima que afecta las competencias constitucionales del indicado órgano contralor en su labor de fiscalización de la Hacienda Pública. Dicha regla jurídica contenida en la norma cuestionada viola, según se alega, el derecho de acceso a la justicia administrativa, las facultades de intervención de la Contraloría General de la República establecidas constitucionalmente y el principio constitucional de control de los procedimientos, amén del principio de razonabilidad.

III.- Sobre el fondo. Tal y como se apuntó supra, esta acción de inconstitucionalidad no discute la existencia de un régimen especial de contratación establecido legislativamente para que la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (en adelante la "La Caja") adquiera ciertas categorías de bienes que necesita para cumplir con su función. El problema de constitucionalidad surge para el accionante a raíz de la forma en que el legislador ha regulado tal sistema especial en el punto específico de las posibilidades de intervención de la Contraloría General de la República, en su calidad de ente fiscalizador de la Contratación administrativa, y concretamente en lo que hace al aspecto recursivo que, según señala, es simplemente inexistente. Se apoya el accionante en citas jurisprudenciales de este órgano de control de constitucionalidad (998-98, 5947-98 y 2832-98 entre otras) de las cuales extrae la necesidad jurídica de que en el diseño legislativo de todos y cualquier sistema de contratación se deban - para cumplir con los principios constitucionales en la materia establecidos jurisprudencialmente- contemplar mecanismos que permitan a la Contraloría General de la República una intervención contralora a través de la vía recursiva en relación directa con la cuantía del negocio, tanto en apego a sus funciones constitucionales, como porque ello resulta ser una concreción exigida del derecho de impugnación con que deben contar los ciudadanos en esta materia. Por su parte, tanto la Procuraduría como la Contraloría Generales de la República, así como la Caja en su calidad de contraparte, se oponen al reclamo y señalan que el legislador ha actuado dentro del marco de sus competencias al diseñar el sistema especial de contratación discutido. Reconocen sí una drástica reducción en la fase recursiva ante la Contraloría y por ello mismo una reducción de su intervención en los procesos de contratación, pero apuntan que esto resulta jurídicamente apropiado y necesario para la satisfacción del interés público concreto involucrado. En tal línea de argumentación, afirman que no puede perderse de vista que el régimen especial de contratación discutido lo es para la compra de medicamentos incluidos en el formulario nacional y otros aditamentos relacionados estrechamente con la salud de las personas de manera que lo que está en juego es el derecho a la vida de los habitantes de la República, lo cual a juicio de los citados órganos constituye justificación suficiente, en sede constitucional, para que el legislador optara, como lo hizo, por el diseño especial de contratación que finalmente estableció en la normativa impugnada, el cual aun cuando reduce innegablemente los medios recursivos como se indicó, no lesiona con ello los principios constitucionales que cita el accionante, dado que el ordenamiento jurídico en su conjunto provee mecanismos distintos pero suficientes para cumplir con la esencia del principio de control y transparencia que se recoge en nuestra Constitución Política.

IV.- Es en la sentencia número 998-98 de las once horas treinta del dieciséis de febrero de mil novecientos noventa y ocho que esta Sala afronta la labor de sistematización de las ideas y principios de rango constitucional que había venido reconociendo a través de los años en materia de contratación administrativa. En relación con el tema que nos ocupa, allí se dijo lo siguiente:

"VI. LOS PRINCIPIOS DE LA CONTRATACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. (...) En virtud de lo anterior, debe entenderse que del artículo 182 de la Constitución Política se derivan todos los principios y parámetros constitucionales que rigen la actividad contractual del Estado. Algunos de estos principios que orientan y regulan la licitación son: (...) y 10.- del control de los procedimientos, principio por el cual todas las tareas de la contratación administrativa son objeto de control y fiscalización en aras de la verificación, al menos, de la correcta utilización de los fondos públicos. De manera que es necesaria, en todo el procedimiento de la contratación administrativa, cuando menos, la verificación de los siguientes controles: el jurídico, para comprobar que ninguna entidad o funcionario realice acto alguno o asuma conductas que transgredan la Ley, realizado mediante la verificación de la existencia previa de recursos económicos; el contable, que es el examen o juzgamiento de las cuentas de las dependencias y de los funcionarios que tienen a su cargo de la administración de fondos y bienes del Estado, que deriva de la revisión constante y sistemática de todas las operaciones que afectan los créditos presupuestarios aprobados por la Asamblea Legislativa o la Contraloría, a fin de que los gastos tengan su respaldo financiero y se ajusten a la clasificación establecida, realizado por las oficinas de control de presupuesto y contabilidad de cada ente o institución contratante; el financiero, que consiste en la fiscalización de la correcta percepción de ingresos y de la legalidad del gasto público, de competencia de las propias oficinas financieras de las instituciones, la Tesorería Nacional, la Oficina de Presupuesto, y la Contraloría General de la República; y el control económico o de resultados, que se realiza sobre la eficiencia y eficacia de la gestión financiera, es decir, sobre los resultados de dicha gestión, la determinación del cumplimiento de las metas establecidas y el aprovechamiento óptimo de los recursos, control que se lleva a cabo muy parcialmente por parte de las instituciones y no se ha concebido como un efectivo instrumento para el desarrollo gerencial e institucional. Estos principios tienen reconocimiento tanto a nivel doctrinal como jurisprudencial, y ya han sido desarrollados por este Tribunal en reiteradas ocasiones y con anterioridad a esta sentencia, de la siguiente manera: (...)" Y más adelante concluye:

"VIII.- CONCLUSIÓN GENERAL INICIAL. Con fundamento en las anteriores consideraciones resulta evidente, a juicio de esta Sala, que los principios derivados del artículo 182 de la Constitución Política, y como tales, de rango constitucional, han sido amplia y repetidamente confirmados por su propia jurisprudencia. Pero además, que en esa misma dirección, tradicionalmente, desde que entró en funciones, los ha protegido la propia Contraloría General de la República en el ejercicio de sus funciones constitucionales, según sus propios precedentes administrativos. En razón de lo afirmado, se concluye que en ese sentido ha sido el desarrollo, tanto por la jurisprudencia administrativa como de la judicial, desde la promulgación de nuestra Carta Fundamental en el año de mil novecientos cuarenta y nueve, del tema de la contratación administrativa. Pero lo dicho no excluye una breve consideración sobre la motivación de la Ley que en estas acciones acumuladas se examina, sobre el llamado principio de eficiencia del Estado en la administración de la cosa pública: la Sala admite, como es lógico inferirlo de las distintas manifestaciones que se han dado en el presente caso, que es política legislativa definir los alcances de los sistemas de contratación administrativa, como consecuencia derivada del texto del artículo 182 de la Constitución Política ya comentado, en el sentido de que la contratación administrativa debe hacerse por medio de licitación "de acuerdo con la ley en cuanto al monto respectivo". Pero ello no excluye que este Tribunal, en razón de su función esencial de ser custodio del principio de la supremacía constitucional, deba examinar la razonabilidad y la proporcionalidad de las normas, para determinar si son conformes a los principios esenciales ya señalados. Y como conclusión general inicial, que emana del examen de los principios, de la doctrina y la jurisprudencia que se han expuesto en los considerandos anteriores, sólo puede afirmarse que el sistema de contratación administrativa está conformado, por un lado, por los principios constitucionales que emanan del artículo 182 de la propia Constitución, y por otro lado, como complemento, por el sistema de control ejercido directamente por el órgano constitucional encargado de la fiscalización y vigilancia de la Hacienda Pública, sea la Contraloría General de la República, que se establece como garantía de la correcta utilización de los fondos públicos en aras de la satisfacción del interés público. Es a la luz de estas normas y principios que se entra a analizar la razonabilidad y proporcionalidad de la normativa impugnada, referente a la contratación administrativa contenida en la Ley y el Reglamento impugnados" (...)

XIX.- LA IMPUGNACIÓN DEL ARTICULO 84 DE LA LEY DE CONTRATACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. Cuestionan los accionantes el artículo 84 de la Ley de Contratación Administrativa, en cuanto establece montos elevadísimos para que proceda la apelación ante la Contraloría General de la República, con lo que se margina y destruye completamente la licitación pública, en violación del artículo 182 constitucional. En relación con esta impugnación, antes que nada, debe recordarse que, precisamente de la concepción de la norma constitucional material del artículo 182 de la Carta Fundamental derivan los principios que rigen la contratación administrativa, y que en consecuencia, son de acatamiento obligatorio, cobra especia importancia el control que ejerce directamente la Contraloría General de la República. Efectivamente, desde el punto de vista del derecho recursivo que se reconoce a todo participante en un concurso público de contratación administrativa, la disposición impugnada es la que establece los límites que marcan el hito a partir del cual se puede apelar la adjudicación ante la Contraloría General de la República y lo hace con base en los montos de las contrataciones. Al estar supeditado ese derecho (a la impugnación) a los montos que se establecían en el artículo 27 de la misma Ley, pierde su sustento jurídico el artículo 84, por cuanto, como se analizó en el considerando XIII de esta sentencia, el artículo 27 de la Ley que era su sustento jurídico, es inconstitucional por lo que esta otra norma resulta evidente y manifiestamente inconstitucional. Y lo es porque de una manera subrepticia, lo que se persigue es hacer caso omiso al principio de orden público derivado del artículo 182 constitucional, de que toda contratación que celebre el Estado debe verificarse mediante licitación, con todas sus consecuencias y con observación de todos sus principios, para lo cual se acude a una limitación que por exagerada en sus montos, resulta desproporcionada e irrazonable. En lo que respecta propiamente al derecho de recurrir, debe indicarse que con anterioridad esta Sala ha señalado que los principios que informan el debido proceso también son de obligada aplicación en los procedimientos administrativos; así, en sentencia número 2130-94, de las catorce horas cincuenta y siete minutos del tres de mayo de mil novecientos noventa y cuatro, señaló:

“[...] los alegatos del accionante son improcedentes. El ordenamiento jurídico nacional establece una amplia gama de garantías y principios procesales de carácter fundamental, de aplicación plena no sólo en el ámbito jurisdiccional, sino también en todo procedimiento administrativo, de forma que su inobservancia ocasiona la nulidad absoluta, por inconstitucionalidad de todo lo actuado, especialmente en casos como el presente, en que la Administración está facultada por ley para eliminar un acto creador de derechos subjetivos -para el caso una concesión- dictado en favor del administrado. Dichos principios y garantías derivan, en general, de los artículos 39 y 41 de la Constitución Política, y más específicamente de la Ley General de la Administración Pública cuyos principios del procedimiento, por la especial naturaleza de la materia que regulan, resultan de acatamiento obligatorio. Dentro de ellos, según la sentencia número 15-90 de las dieciséis horas cuarenta y cinco minutos del cinco de enero de mil novecientos noventa de esta Sala, se encuentran:

«... a) Notificación al interesado del carácter y fines del procedimiento; b) derecho a ser oído, y oportunidad del interesado para presentar los argumentos y producir las pruebas que entienda pertinentes; c) oportunidad para el administrado de preparar su alegación, lo que incluye necesariamente el acceso a la información y a los antecedentes administrativos, vinculados con la cuestión de que se trate; ch) derecho del administrado de hacerse representar y asesorar por abogados, técnicos y otras personas calificadas; d) notificación adecuada de la decisión que dicta la Administración y de los motivos en que ella se funde y e) derecho del interesado de recurrir la decisión dictada...»”; criterio que ha sido reiterado por la jurisprudencia de esta Sala (en este mismo sentido ver la sentencia número 2360-94 de las quince horas seis minutos del diecisiete de mayo de mil novecientos noventa y cuatro). Ahora bien, como el recurrir contra los actos administrativos que nos perjudican es un derecho fundamental, es que es posible, y además necesario, regular la forma en que debe ejercerse este derecho, tal y como se indicó en sentencia número 1420-91 de las nueve horas del veinticuatro de julio de mil novecientos noventa y uno:

“En efecto, el principio de razonabilidad implica que el Estado pueda limitar o restringir el ejercicio abusivo del derecho, pero debe hacerlo en forma tal que la norma jurídica se adecue en todos sus elementos, como el motivo y el fin que persigue, con el sentido objetivo que se contempla en la Constitución.” Nótese que lo que se ha admitido es únicamente la regulación de este derecho, de manera que no es posible establecer ningún tipo de obstáculo que dificulte en forma irrazonable el acceso a la justicia administrativa, o haga imposible o nugatorio este derecho; y en este caso, no debe olvidarse que el agotamiento de la vía administrativa es requisito de admisibilidad para poder acceder a la vía jurisdiccional, específicamente la vía contencioso administrativa. En razón de lo anterior, es que es dable concluir que la celeridad de los procedimientos de la contratación administrativa debe afianzarse en medios que no resulten conculcatorios de los derechos fundamentales, como lo son el derecho de defensa y el acceso a la justicia pronta, cumplida y sin denegación, de manera que no pueden inhibirse en forma excesiva ni irracional las posibilidades recursivas de los participantes en los concursos promovidos por la Administración. (...) En este sentido, no debe olvidarse que el control de los procedimientos licitatorios constituye un principio esencial de la contratación administrativa, precisamente en aras de proteger y garantizar el interés público en lo que atañe a la verificación y fiscalización de la correcta utilización de los fondos públicos. El principio anterior fue confirmado por esta Sala en sentencia número 2514-93 de las nueve horas seis minutos del cuatro de junio de mil novecientos noventa y tres, en que consideró que no resulta inconstitucional la facultad que se otorga a la administración para declarar desiertos los concursos, pero sí lo sería la denegatoria de recursos contra las resoluciones adjudicatorias de las licitaciones públicas, en los siguientes términos:

“Conforme al artículo 9 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional, la presente gestión debe rechazarse por el fondo, ya que el artículo 131 del Reglamento de la Contratación Administrativa permite la revocación o nulidad de oficio del acto que declara la desierto un concurso, pero no concede recurso alguno para ante órganos no jurisdiccionales a las partes eventualmente afectadas, regulación que per se no infringe los principios fundamentales del debido proceso ni los informadores de la libre competencia y transparencia propios de la contratación administrativa, pues no podría afirmarse que los participantes en una licitación cuenten con un derecho fundamental a que aquella no sea declarada desierta, o a que la ley prevea un recurso en sede administrativa para impugnar esa declaración y de toda suerte, como se dirá, el ordenamiento prevé un remedio legal para impugnar la decisión final que recayere en «toda licitación del Estado»; declararla desierta conlleva el ejercicio de una potestad discrecional del órgano licitante que esta Sala no podría sustituir. Ha de quedar sentado que la denegatoria de recursos contra resoluciones que adjudiquen una licitación pública sí sería motivo de amparo, pues atentaría contra el debido proceso ya que adjudicada una licitación -al contrario del acto que la declara desierta- sí puede afirmarse que los participantes cuentan con un derecho fundamental a que el punto sea examinado por la Contraloría General de la República, porque el negocio jurídico ha sido concluido con trascendencia económica para la Administración y para los participantes, mientras que la declaratoria de desierta no precluye que el concurso de nuevo sea convocado.” V.- Sobre la base de tales principios, tuvo este tribunal la oportunidad de pronunciarse más en específico todavía respecto del derecho fundamental a los recursos en esta materia y la participación de la Contraloría en ellos, cuando declaró inconstitucional una norma por disponer parámetros económicos excesivamente altos que hacían nugatorio el derecho de recurrir en buena cantidad de contrataciones y porque se transfería la competencia para conocer las eventuales apelaciones a otro órgano distinto de la Contraloría General de la República. De tal manera se expuso:

"VII.- (...) En esa oportunidad [sentencia número 998-98 recién citada] reiteró que los principios que informan el debido proceso también son de obligada aplicación en los procedimientos administrativos, por lo que no es posible establecer ningún tipo de obstáculo que dificulte en forma irrazonable el acceso a la justicia administrativa, o haga nugatorio este derecho; de manera que en la celeridad de los procedimientos de la contratación administrativa debe afianzarse en medios que no resulten conculcatorios de los derechos fundamentales, como lo son el derecho de defensa y el acceso a la justicia pronta, cumplida y sin denegación, de manera que no pueden inhibirse en forma excesiva ni irracional las posibilidades recursivas de los participantes en los concursos promovidos por la Administración. En atención a lo anterior, se concluye la primera inconstitucionalidad de este párrafo, ya que al haberse establecido unos topes tan altos para la procedencia de la licitación pública, el párrafo primero del artículo 171 de la Ley del Banco Central, declarado anteriormente inconstitucional, hace difícil o imposible el acceso al recurso de apelación. La segunda inconstitucionalidad de esta disposición debe considerarse en atención a lo dicho en el considerando anterior (VI.), en lo que se refiere a las funciones y competencias propias de la Contraloría General de la República; de manera que el conocimiento de las apelaciones con grado de superior jerárquico impropio de los actos de adjudicación que acuerden los bancos del sistema bancario nacional, forman parte de las facultades de fiscalización ejercidas por la Contraloría en la vigilancia de la hacienda pública, con arreglo a las normas y principios constitucionales, que el legislador ordinario no puede limitar ni desnaturalizar.(...)" (sentencia 1998-05947 de las catorce horas treinta y dos minutos del diecinueve de agosto de mil novecientos noventa y ocho.)

La anterior tesis sin embargo fue acotada en su amplio alcance por la propia Sala al analizar el tema específico de la diferencia en los regímenes recursivos y la participación de la Contraloría General de la República en las licitaciones por registro y restringidas. En esa ocasión se expuso lo siguiente:

"III.- Aunque estas normas no fueron analizadas de manera particularizada en la sentencia número 0998-98, de las once horas treinta minutos del dieciséis de febrero de este año, lo cierto es en ella se fijaron un serie de principios, concretamente en lo que se refiere a las características que pueden tener las licitaciones restringidas y por registro contenidas en la Ley de la Contratación Administrativa, que son fundamentales para dirimir la cuestión.- Específicamente, se expuso lo siguiente (..)

IV.- Con base en los principios establecidos en la sentencia transcrita [se refiere a la sentencia número 998-98 citada más arriba] se concluye que las normas impugnadas no violan los artículos 39, 41 y 183 de la Constitución Política.- Según lo que dispone la ley luego de las variaciones operadas por la sentencia de la Sala que recién se citó, la licitación restringida y la licitación por registro, son modalidades de contratación que se corresponden con lo que se conocía anteriormente como "licitación privada" por lo que, en tales condiciones, resulta constitucionalmente admisible que el régimen impugnatorio difiera del definido para la licitación pública porque precisamente se trata de situaciones especiales suficientemente reguladas, en las cuales, de acuerdo a la doctrina constitucional expuesta en los considerandos anteriores, puede atemperarse la participación de la Contraloría General de la República, más si se toma en cuenta la extensa regulación que actualmente tienen tales procesos licitatorios (licitación restringida y licitación por registro) comparados con su antecesora la licitación privada.- Como conclusión, no existe la infracción alegada del derecho de acceso a la justicia administrativa, porque existe en las normas discutidas la posibilidad de revisión de lo actuado, y tampoco se irrespeta el régimen de control que el artículo 183 otorga a la Contraloría General de la República." Finalmente, importa señalar que en la sentencia número 13910-2005 de las quince horas cuatro minutos del once octubre del dos mil cinco, la Sala confirmó todas las ideas antes expuestas y determinó por una parte la validez de la atenuación de los principios de la contratación administrativa en ciertos procesos del sistema ordinario de contratación (licitación restringida y licitación por registro) y definió por otra parte también la necesidad y validez constitucional de la llamada contratación directa como excepción necesaria para completar el sistema de contratación administrativa en el caso de situaciones en las que el empleo de medios licitatorios ordinarios de cualquier clase, pondría en riesgo el logro del fin público perseguido.

VI.- La tesis del accionante en este caso se funda esencialmente en los antecedentes descritos, y sostiene que el procedimiento especial de contratación sobre el que gira esta acción impide a los administrados el cuestionamiento ante la Contraloría de actos como el cartel de licitación o la adjudicación, esto sin hacer distinción en la cuantía del negocio, con lo cual - igual que en los antecedentes descritos-, se limita de forma irrazonable y claramente inconstitucional el derecho de recurrir de las decisiones perjudiciales que en las licitaciones públicas -es decir las que poseen cierta cuantía y un amplio proceso- ha sido exigido por la Sala. Las entidades públicos apersonadas en este proceso afirman que puesto que constitucionalmente es admisible la atenuación de los principios de la contratación administrativa en ciertos casos, entonces no ha actuado mal el legislador cuando diseña en la normativa discutida un sistema de contratación particular, que se caracteriza -en lo que aquí interesa-, por una disminución de las garantías recursivas, si tal actuación legislativa de atenuación se funda en la necesidad de proteger un bien de rango constitucional como la salud de las personas. Sin embargo, para la Sala esta línea de razonamiento contradice el artículo 182 Constitucional, que como ha sido dicho, sirve de base para el desarrollo de los principios del sistema de contratación administrativa, pues en dicha disposición se acoge la licitación como medio normal de contratación "de acuerdo con la ley en cuanto al monto respectivo" con lo cual el Constituyente se decanta por la cuantía como parámetro discriminante en el diseño de diversos tipos de procesos de contratación administrativa que según la cuantía podrán tener regulaciones diversas, pero siempre respetando en su esencia el derecho de la Constitución. De tal forma, con excepción de la cuantía, no reconoce de forma expresa nuestro texto constitucional ningún otro parámetro para la aplicación de una atenuación de los principios constitucionales relativos a la contratación administrativa.

VII.- Cabría entender no obstante que aun cuando no aparezca contemplada de forma expresa en el texto constitucional, resulta jurídicamente necesario reconocer una autorización constitucional no expresa, pero sí tácitamente establecida, para distinguir mecanismos licitatorios con diferentes grados de exigencias, en el tanto en que, como se argumenta, ciertas finalidades públicas son incompatibles con los procesos normales de contratación. Para este órgano eso es justo lo que ocurrió con un tipo especial de proceso de contratación administrativa denominado contratación directa, sobre cuya naturaleza se expuso en la citada sentencia 13910-05, precisamente en el sentido de que, sin bien no está recogido en el artículo 182 Constitucional, se trata de un instrumento necesario para atender ciertas necesidades de contratación que por sus características especiales no pueden ser sometidas a los procesos licitatorios ordinarios (concretamente licitación pública, licitación por registro y licitación restringida.). Sin embargo, para la Sala tampoco es éste el caso de la normativa impugnada por dos razones fundamentales: la primera, de tipo procedimental, consiste en hacer notar que el diseño del sistema de contratación cuestionado en esta acción está básicamente montado sobre el concepto de un concurso o licitación. Brevemente, se aprecia que: a) existe un conjunto o catálogo preestablecido de fichas técnicas que describen a cabalidad las condiciones y elementos determinantes de los productos que en algún momento serán licitados. Tal catálogo es actualizado y revisado con asiduidad para su perfeccionamiento según informa la Caja, de manera que los futuros participantes y cualquier interesado puede con antelación conocer de forma precisa las características de objeto del concurso; b) el órgano encargado de la contratación cuenta igualmente con un registro en el que se han inscrito previamente los proveedores interesados según cada producto y su ficha técnica, y es con base en tal Registro que se hace la llamada a concurso, en la cual, como lo señalan todas entidades, debe entenderse como exigido que se hará una convocatoria a todos los proveedores inscritos; c) las ofertas presentadas se valoran en pie de igualdad y la elección debe hacerse según condiciones de calidad y precio, y; d) las actuaciones dentro de este régimen tienen -según lo expresan también las tres entidades- una variedad de medios de impugnación y en concreto afirma la Caja que pueden discutirse e impugnarse el registro de oferentes, la ficha técnica, y el acto de adjudicación que puede ser discutido por el particular ante la Caja como administración activa, a través de los medios impugnatorios contenidos en la Ley General de Administración Pública.. Todo lo anterior deja establecido para la Sala que, según se explica, la compra de bienes a través del mecanismo impugnado se apega claramente a un concurso o -en palabras de nuestro constituyente-, una licitación y no una contratación directa, la cual como se indicó parte de precisamente de la noción contraria, es decir la imposibilidad o alta inconveniencia del empleo de medios licitatorios ordinarios para el logro del fin público. La segunda razón precisamente tiene estrecha relación con las características del fin público perseguido con este sistema de contratación, y que tanto las entidades públicas, como la propia Sala, entienden que es la apropiada atención de la salud de las personas que atiende la Caja, interés éste que las instituciones defensoras de la norma no demuestran que resulte incompatible per se y en todo caso, con las características de los procedimientos licitatorios, si más bien entiende este Tribunal que resulta perfectamente posible, en una buena cantidad de casos, que los medios normales de contratación, empleados apropiadamente y con la debida previsión, produzcan el inventario de medicamentos y demás material médico adecuado para atender las necesidades normales de la entidad en ese aspecto. Visto desde esta perspectiva, lo cierto es que las necesidades de medicamentos y productos señalados en la ley discutida, para la atención de salud de las personas por parte de una institución como la Caja que se dedica a esa labor, resulta, por regla general, predecible, partiendo de la base de una mínima organización y registro de estadísticas y eventos, mientras que la atención de los inevitables eventos imprevistos y otras situaciones emergentes, pueden claramente atenderse a través justamente de los mecanismos de contratación directa, legalmente existentes en el ordenamiento y creados con ese específico fin. En este último sentido, es importante recordar la jurisprudencia de la Sala sobre la modulación de las potestades públicas que surge de las situaciones de emergencia. Al respecto, al analizar los artículos 2 y 80 de la Ley de Contratación administrativa, se dijo que:

“… Pero además, se resulta oportuno señalar que la idea de un tratamiento distinto del ordinario frente a situaciones excepcionales, no tiene nada de novedoso ni extraño y que aparece incluso recogido (aunque para otros supuestos) en nuestra Constitución Política, la cual en el numeral 180 señala que:

“Artículo 180.- El presupuesto ordinario y los extraordinarios constituyen el límite de acción de los Poderes Públicos para el uso y disposición de los recursos del Estado, y sólo podrán ser modificados por leyes de iniciativa del Poder Ejecutivo.

Todo proyecto de modificación que implique aumento o creación de gastos deberá sujetarse a lo dispuesto en el artículo anterior.

Sin embargo, cuando la Asamblea esté en receso, el Poder Ejecutivo podrá variar el destino de una partida autorizada, o abrir créditos adicionales, pero únicamente para satisfacer necesidades urgentes o imprevistas en casos de guerra, conmoción interna o calamidad pública. En tales casos, la Contraloría no podrá negar su aprobación a los gastos ordenados y el decreto respectivo implicará convocatoria de la Asamblea Legislativa a sesiones extraordinarias para su conocimiento.” Se trataría entonces de situaciones claramente excepcionales que la sentencia número 3410-1992 de las catorce horas cuarenta y cinco minutos del diez de noviembre de mil novecientos noventa y dos, tuvo ocasión de definir como:

“…manifestaciones de lo que se conoce en la doctrina del Derecho Público como "estado de necesidad y urgencia", en virtud del principio "salus populi suprema lex est", entendiendo que el bien jurídico más débil (la conservación del orden normal de competencias legislativas) debe ceder ante el bien jurídico más fuerte (la conservación del orden jurídico y social, que, en ocasiones, no permite esperar a que se tramite y apruebe una ley); y en el Derecho Penal, como "estado de necesidad", o sea, "una situación de peligro para un bien jurídico, que sólo puede salvarse mediante la violación de otro bien jurídico",. Y es este el mismo sentido del texto del artículo 180 constitucional.” De este modo, ni el reglamento ni la ley resultan novedosos al reconocer y dejar abierta la posibilidad de excepcionar los procedimientos ordinarios de contratación frente a grupos de situaciones que por su condición:

“…deben entenderse dentro de la más rancia definición de la fuerza mayor o, a lo sumo, del caso fortuito, es decir, sucesos que provienen de la naturaleza, como los terremotos y las inundaciones, o de la acción del hombre, como tumultos populares, invasiones y guerra, o de la propia condición humana, como las epidemias, eventos que son sorpresivos e imprevisibles, o aunque previsibles, inevitables; (…) de situaciones anormales que no pueden ser controladas, manejadas o dominadas con las medidas ordinarias de que dispone el Gobierno. (Sentencia 3410-1992) A esto cabría agregar ahora que en la Ley número 8511 del dieciséis de mayo de dos mil seis, si bien eliminó la urgencia del artículo 2 recién citado, en cambio agregó un artículo 2 bis que en lo conducente señala:

“Artículo 2 bis Autorizaciones. Exclúyense de los procedimientos de concurso establecidos en esta Ley, los siguientes supuestos autorizados por la Contraloría General de la República:

(…)

• c)Otras actividades o casos específicos en los que se acrediten suficientes razones para considerar que es la única forma de alcanzar la debida satisfacción del interés general o de evitar daños o lesiones a los intereses públicos” Lo anterior sin perjuicio de que como se dijo también el artículo 80 de la citada Ley expresamente contempla para los casos de urgencia el levantamiento de algunos o todas las formalidades de la contratación administrativa. De tal forma, es claro que la protección a la salud no siempre conlleva ese elemento de urgencia o premura o situación imprevista que parecen apreciar las entidades públicas apersonadas, también es claro además que existen suficientes soporte constitucional y legal para sustentar el relevo de procedimientos de contratación en la atención de urgencias y emergencias que así lo ameriten, por lo que no es admisible para esta Sala la tesis de que sea necesario reconocer la existencia en este caso otra autorización y justificación constitucionales para una atenuación de los principios constitucionales de control de la contratación administrativa.

VIII.Una línea de argumentación diferente para analizar la constitucionalidad de la normativa impugnada se encuentra implícita en los escritos de las instituciones arriba mencionadas y consiste en entender que la normativa impugnada lo que refleja es la ponderación que hizo el legislador entre dos principios constitucionales, a saber por un lado el derecho a la vida y la salud pública, y por otro los principios y valores que recogen el derecho a la impugnación de los actos perjudiciales de que goza el administrado y además de aquellos que imponen la existencia de medios de control de las actuaciones públicas, en particular las relacionadas con la hacienda pública y atribuidas en nuestro medio constitucional a la Contraloría General de la República. Se trataría en este caso concreto de una discusión respecto de la aparente interferencia y superposición entre los ámbitos y alcances del derecho a la vida y la salud pública, que obligan al Estado y en este caso al Poder Legislativo a tomar las medidas necesarias y apropiadas para velar porque éste se cumpla en favor de los ciudadanos, en frente de los principios -desarrollados esencialmente por la jurisprudencia de esta Sala- que obligan a las autoridades y -de nuevo- en concreto al legislador, a tomar las medidas pertinentes y necesarias para que los ciudadanos interesados tengan la posibilidad de ejercer un control sobre las actuaciones de los órganos públicos, en relación con las contrataciones que se realizan con fondos públicos, control éste que corresponde realizarse primariamente a través de la intervención como superior jerárquico impropio por la Contraloría General de la República. En este punto, estima la Sala que la contradicción es más aparente que real: como se indicó en el considerando anterior, jurídicamente y dentro del marco del derecho de la Constitución es plausible un deslinde de campos de acción que permita para ambos conjuntos de principios (salud por una parte y contratación administrativa por otra) un amplio desarrollo sin interferencias En particular, considera la Sala que el sistema de contratación administrativa, visto en su totalidad y con aplicación de sus principios tal y como están delineados, permite y hace posible sin interferencias una apropiada protección del derecho a la salud y la vida de los ciudadanos, sin que esto requiera e implique una merma o atenuación en los principios constitucionales relativos a contratación administrativa, tal y como en efecto lo sostienen las instituciones intervinientes, y como está efectivamente regulada en la normativa discutida. Bastará para tal efecto que se apliquen el deslinde y los criterios que esta Sala ha venido definiendo con el tiempo para que, como lo señala la Contraloría se apliquen "...soluciones ordinarias a situaciones ordinarias y soluciones extraordinarias a situaciones extraordinarias...", siendo que para este Tribunal la normativa yerra al establecer, en lo que respecta al sistema recursivo y de control, un trato de situación extraordinaria a procesos de contratación que carecen de tal condición y que -en lo que al sistema recursivo y de control por parte de la Contraloría se refiere- soportan perfectamente el cumplimiento, de las disposiciones del sistema ordinario de contratación con sus reglas y criterios definidos según la cuantía y apegados al Derecho de la Constitución.

XIX.Conclusion y dimensionamiento.- De todo lo anterior, se concluye que la ley impugnada resulta efectivamente inconstitucional pero única y exclusivamente en lo que se refiere a la limitación del régimen recursivo y la intervención de la Contraloría General de la República establecido en el procedimiento especial de contratación contenido en el artículo 72 de la Ley Constitutiva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro social, adicionado mediante la Ley número 6914 del veintiocho de noviembre de mil novecientos ochenta y tres. La inconstitucionalidad se origina en la frase "con la sola autorización de la Contraloría General de la República" del citado artículo, que estima la Sala que contiene una infracción a los principios de la contratación administrativa pues si bien en la materia objeto de contratación por este procedimiento especial, esta en juego la salud de las personas, ese solo hecho por sí mismo no hace admisible constitucionalmente hablando, que siempre y en todo caso, las contrataciones deban llevarse a cabo con exclusión de los medios de control que normalmente están establecidos, según la cuantía para las contrataciones que realizan las instituciones estatales. Más bien al contrario, entiende la Sala que puede la salud de las personas quedar igual de bien servida sin lesionar otros derechos constitucionales, con solo eliminar la frase arriba señalada, de modo que se entienda que la normativa impugnada únicamente sustituye al sistema ordinario,

en cuanto se fija un procedimiento concreto y diferente pero que, respecto de los aspectos recursivos y de intervención de la Contraloría, debe estarse lo establecido en el sistema ordinario de contratación, todo ello según sea la cuantía del negocio. Con lo anterior también debe entenderse que permanece abierta para la Caja la posibilidad de acudir a los procedimientos de contratación directa en los supuestos de excepción establecidos y con respeto de los trámites fijados, de manera que por esa vía puedan cubrirse las situaciones extraordinarias que amenacen con dañar la salud de las personas y -demostradamente- no puedan solventarse por la vía de aplicación de procedimientos ordinarios generales o especiales. En virtud de lo dispuesto en la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional esta sentencia tiene efectos declarativos y retroactivos a la fecha de vigencia de la disposición anulada, sin perjuicio de derechos adquiridos de buena fe. Sin embargo, de conformidad con lo dispuesto por el artículo 91 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional, se dimensionan los efectos en el sentido de que la inconstitucionalidad declarada no afecta las contrataciones formalizadas y finiquitadas, ni las que se encuentran en proceso de ejecución, con anterioridad a la publicación del texto íntegro de esta sentencia en el Boletín Judicial. Dada la particular naturaleza de la declaratoria de inconstitucionalidad aquí establecida que busca remediar una actuación de exclusión establecida inconstitucionalmente, lo procedente es vincular el procedimiento especial establecido en el artículo 71 y 72 de la Ley impugnada, con lo dispuesto en la Ley de la Contratación Administrativa, número 7494, reformada por la Ley número 7612, y a lo indicado en sentencia número 0998-98, de las once horas treinta minutos del dieciséis de febrero del año en curso, todo ello como se indicó con exclusiva referencia al régimen recursivo y de intervención de la Contraloría General de la República, allí establecidos, según la cuantía del negocio.. Los Magistrados Armijo Sancho y Cruz Castro salvan el voto y declaran sin lugar la acción con fundamento en los motivos que exponen.

XX. Los Magistrados Vargas y Cruz salvan el voto y declaran sin lugar la acción

Por tanto

Se declara con lugar la acción, y en consecuencia se anula por inconstitucional la frase "se podrán realizar con la sola autorización de la Contraloría General de la República" contenida en el artículo 72 de la Ley Constituva de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro social, adicionado mediante la Ley número 6914 del veintiocho de noviembre de mil novecientos ochenta y tres. Esta sentencia tiene efectos declarativos y retroactivos a la fecha de vigencia de la disposición anulada, sin perjuicio de derechos adquiridos de buena fe. De conformidad con lo dispuesto en el artículo 91 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional, se dimensionan los efectos en el sentido de que la inconstitucionalidad declarada no afecta las contrataciones formalizadas y finiquitadas, ni las que se encuentran en proceso de ejecución, con anterioridad a la publicación del texto íntegro de esta sentencia en el Boletín Judicial. En virtud de la declaratoria ordenada, y respecto del régimen recursivo y de intervención de la Contraloría General de la República, debe la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social aplicar lo dispuesto en la Ley de la Contratación Administrativa, número 7494, reformada por la Ley número 7612, y a lo indicado en sentencia número 0998-98, de las once horas treinta minutos del dieciséis de febrero del año en curso, según proceda de acuerdo con la cuantía del negocio. Reséñese este pronunciamiento en el Diario Oficial La Gaceta y publíquese íntegramente en el Boletín Judicial. Comuníquese este pronunciamiento a los Poderes Legislativo y Ejecutivo, a la Contraloría General de la República y la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social. Notifíquese.

Ana Virginia Calzada M.

Presidenta a.i.

Luis Paulino Mora M. Adrián Vargas B.

Gilbert Armijo S. Ernesto Jinesta L.

Fernando Cruz C. Jorge Araya G.