- For leaves of three months or less, attending to the employee’s personal matters shall be sufficient reason for granting it.
- For leaves exceeding three months, they may be granted by resolution in strict compliance with the following provisions:
a- Up to one year for:
1- Serious family matters, such as illness, convalescence, medical treatment when so required by the employee.
2- Pursuing academic studies at the higher education level, whether undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, or at a technical level, that require the employee’s full-time or part-time dedication during the workday.
3- The employee disengaging from the institution where they work for the purpose of participating in the execution of experimental projects within a program for transferring activities from the public sector to the private sector, which has prior approval from the Institution’s higher authority.
4- Said term may be extended for up to one additional year, at the discretion of the Board of Directors (Junta Directiva), in the case of pursuing postgraduate studies at the higher education level, or higher-level or technical studies, upon favorable demonstration of the prior year’s satisfactory progress and academic performance.
5- In specific cases of medical treatment, the leave may likewise be extended for up to one additional year, upon demonstration and verification of the respective medical treatment.
6- When an employee has a job opportunity at another workplace and their appointment is not permanent after three months.
b- Up to two years at the request of a foreign government or an international or regional organization duly accredited in the country, or of foundations whose purposes directly benefit the State, or in the case of the spouse of a scholarship recipient who must accompany them on their trip abroad. At the discretion of the Board of Directors, this leave may be extended for an equal period, provided the conditions that originated it persist.
c- Leaves of absence without pay for up to four years may be granted by internal resolution of the Board of Directors (Consejo Directivo) under the following rules:
1- For up to four years, at the request of any State Institution or other agency of the Executive Branch, or in the case of the spouse of an employee appointed to the Foreign Service, in cases of employees appointed to other public positions, or who are elected to positions of popular election. The aforementioned term may be extended, when the causes that motivated the original leave persist.
d- In all cases, continuous leaves arguing different reasons may not be granted until at least six months have elapsed since the employee’s return to work, except in very qualified cases at the discretion of the Board of Directors, without harming the Administration’s purposes.
e- Every request for leave of absence without pay and/or extension must be made one month in advance of the date required by the rule. In the event that the employee is absent from work without due approval of their leave or extension, the fact shall be considered as abandonment of work (abandono del trabajo), and therefore they may be dismissed from the position without employer liability.
f- Proven circumstances of extreme limitation and time for these procedures are exempt, in which, for this reason, the employee is forced to be absent before duly completing the procedure, in which case the employee shall be subject to the administrative solutions that best suit the administration, so that it may be compensated for the salary expenses and payments incurred for this cause.
Additionally, it is indicated that the Regulation is available on the Institution's website www.pima.go.cr, where it may be consulted by interested parties.