Prescription and expiration in the contentious-administrative process

Abstract

Paragraph k) of article 66 of the Contentious-Administrative Procedure Act n.º 8508, has included, within the list of previous defenses that can be enforced when answering the claim -or counterclaim-, both the prescription and the expiration of the right, as long as they “are evident and manifest”; which means that, if they do not have these conditions, they could be invoked, not as a prior defense, but as a substantive argument. Despite the regulation made by articles 39 and 41 of that Act, the legal effects may be similar, so it is possible that there is confusion regarding when one or another figure should be applied within the contentious-administrative judicial process, to guarantee an access to justice with strict adherence to the legal system. Hence, the case-law criteria, both of the Contentious Administrative Court and of the First Chamber, serve to define and understand what the correct application is of one and the other, based on the evaluations they make in the conflicts that are submitted to their knowledge as judicial bodies with the capacity and competence to do so.