Understanding Legal Timeframes: Terms, Deadlines, and Computations

Understanding Legal Timeframes

At the right time. The passage of time impacts the legal system. It is relevant for acquiring the capacity to act, acquiring subjective rights, determining when they can be exercised, and their extinction.

Difference and Concept: Term and Deadline

The exercise of a right is always bound to a term, which marks the start or end of something. It's the exact moment at which a given action may commence (e.g., "you have to present on day 1"). The opposite, a deadline, indicates the period within which an act must be carried out (e.g., "you have to present between the 15th and the 20th").

Therefore, in the exercise of a right, both terms and deadlines are directly connected with the concept of working and non-working days.

Working vs. Non-working Days

• Non-working day: A day set by law where you cannot exercise a right or perform an action in a procedural context.
• In civil rights, all days are considered, and non-working days are not excluded.
• In procedural time limits, a distinction must be made:
  • Criminal procedure: All dates and times are valid.
  • Contentious-administrative matters: Public holidays and the month of August are declared non-working.

Labor Process

In the labor process, Saturdays and August are generally not considered working days, except for calculating specific time limits stipulated by law, such as dismissal. For instance, if a statute gives employees 20 working days to contest a dismissal, this period starts running even if the dismissal occurred in August. August is considered a working month for calculating this specific period.

Working Hours

From a procedural standpoint, working hours are generally from 8 am to 8 pm, unless otherwise specified by law (although there is always a police court on duty).

Calculation of Time

There are two systems for calculating time:

1. Natural Computation: Time is measured from a specific time to another previously stipulated time.
2. Civil Computation: Days are not considered as fractions; the initial day is the immediate following day. This is reflected in Article 5 of the Civil Code.

In our legal system, civil computation is the standard rule. An exception is the "useful computation," which only considers working days.