Administrative Acts: Power, Validity, Retroactivity, Legality

What is the power of an administrative rule?

The enforceability may be direct or indirect. It is direct when the authority has the power to require the police to compel compliance — what is often referred to as imperium or coercive authority.

What is retroactivity?

By retroactivity is understood that the act produces its effects in situations that occurred prior to its enactment, creating, modifying, or extinguishing rights recognized from a time before its entry into force.

What is the principle of conservation?

The principle of conservation means that if an event is open to various interpretations, preference is given to those interpretations in which the act remains valid. When an administrative act has a defect that does not affect its essence, the act continues to apply.

Are administrative acts public documents?

Support your answer. Quoting Gordon Hutchinson: most of administrative doctrine does not agree that the mere presence of an official in the exercise of authority presupposes the creation of public instruments. The administrative agent is not a public official, and even less a notary public. In our law, as defined by Article 1699 of the Civil Code, a public or authentic instrument is executed with the legal formalities by the competent official.

Requirements of validity for administrative acts

The requirements for an administrative act to be valid and binding may include: competence, will, purpose, form, cause or motive, and intent.

Validity requirements in Article 7 of the Constitution

1. The act must be endowed by the regular members of the organization issuing it.
2. The agency must be operating within its sphere of competence.
3. The act must be carried out in the manner provided by law.

This article sanctions as invalid any act issued without complying with these three requirements.

Principle of legality of administrative acts

The principle of legality is the subordination of administrative proceedings to the legal and constitutional rules that govern them. Only those rules are the source of the functions and powers of any public body, which can enforce only the powers provided by law.

What is meant by rule of law?

The rule of law means that the State is subject to a legal system, which is the authentic expression of the law in force in society. A principle of the rule of law is that administrative acts must be obeyed unless the authority or a body empowered by law declares them invalid or suspends their effects.