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The President of the Republic has the power to name the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic, from the select list proposed by the National Senate.
Article 154.- There shall be an office of financial accountancy and control called the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic. The law will determine the functions and responsibilities of the Comptroller General and that of the functionaries of his office. The Comptroller General will depend directly on the President of the Republic and will be named by the latter from the short list proposed by the Senate and will enjoy the same fixed tenure as the other Ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Article 155.- The Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic will have the same financial control on the operations of autonomous self sufficient entities, and joint stock companies. The annual management will be subject to reviews of specialised audits. It will annually publish reports and demonstrative statements of its financial situation and will render accounts which the law prescribes. The Legislative, through its commissions, will have wide ranging powers of supervision of the said organisations. No official of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic will be part of the management of the self sufficient entities under its control nor will they accept any emolument from the said organizations.
Article 1. The present law regulates the systems of Administration and Control of the State’s resources and its relation with the national systems of Planning and Public Investment, with the aim of:
a) Programming, organizing, executing, and controlling the collection and the efficient and effective use of public resources for the fulfillment and opportune settlement of the policies, the programmes, the benefit of services and Public Sector projects;
b) Making available useful, timely and reliable information ensuring the reasonableness of reports and financial situations;
c) Making sure that every public servant, without hierarchical distinctions assumes full responsibility for his actions, giving an account not only of the goals for which public resources entrusted to him are designated but also the manner and result of their use;
d) Developing the administrative capacity to prevent or identify and check the incorrect handling of the State’s resources.
Article 2.- The systems that are regulated are:
a) For programming and organizing activities:
- Programming of Operations
- Administrative Organization
- Budget
b) For carrying out the programmed activities:
- Administration of Personnel
- Administration of Goods and Services
- Treasury and Public Credit
- Integral Accountancy
c) For controlling the management of the Public Sector:
- Governmental Control, made up of Internal Control and Subsequent External Control
Article 3.- The systems of Administration and Control shall apply in all the organizations of the Public Sector, without exception, namely the Presidency and Vice-presidency of the Republic, ministries, the administrative units of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Electoral Courts; the Central Bank of Bolivia, the Superintendencies of Banks and Insurance, Development Corporations and state organizations of financial brokerage; the Armed Forces and the National Police; governmental departments, universities and municipalities, institutions, organizations and enterprises of the national departmental and local government, and every other juridical entity where the State holds major part of national assets.
Article 4.- The Legislative and Judicial Powers shall apply to their administrative units the same rules as are provided in the present Law, in agreement with its own objectives, plans and policies, in the framework of the independence and coordination of powers.
Article 5.- Any person not included in articles 3 and 4, whatever may be his juridical standing, who receives capital from the State, for investment and functioning, who benefits from subsidies, grants, advantages and exemptions, or who lends public services not subject to free competition, according to the rules and with the exceptions of quantity which the same indicate, will inform the competent public authority on the use, manner and results of the management of public concessions and capitals and will present financial statements duly audited. Public and independent qualified opinion can also be asked for on the efficacy of some or all the systems of administration and control which are used.
Article 6.- The System of Programme Operation will translate the objective and strategic plans of each organization, in conformity with the plans and policies made by the National Planning System into concrete results to be obtained in the medium and short term; in concrete tasks to be executed, in procedures to be followed and in means and resources to be used, all depending on space and time. This programming will be of an integral nature including functioning operations as well as those of execution of pre-investment and investment. The process of investment programming should correspond to projects adequated to sectoral and regional policies, in agreement with the rules of the National System of Public Investment.
Article 7.- The System of Administrative Organization will define and adapt itself depending on the Programming of Operations. It will avoid duplication of objectives and powers through adaptation, mergers and elimination of organizations through the following rules:
a) In the chief organization of the sector at the different levels of government, the policy adopting functions, issuing and superintending of rules, their execution and follow up, will be centralized and the execution of policies and the management of the systems of administration will be decentralized and distributed over a wider area.
b) All public entities will internally organize, depending on its objective and the nature of its activities, the systems of administration and internal control which this law deals with.
Article 8.- The Budget System will plan, depending on the priorities of government policy, the amount and sources of financial resources for each year’s management and its allocation for the monetary requirements of the Programming of Operations and the Administrative Organization adopted. This will be subject to the following general rules:
a) Governmental bodies which depend on tax resources, social security contributions and other contributions, royalties or transfers from the State’s Treasury, will adjust their total expenditure to the availability of resources, to the conditions of financing duly contracted and to the legal budgetary limits, without being able to transfer investment expenditure to operations.
b) Organizations with autonomous management and capital resources whose income comes exclusively from the sale of goods and lending of services will finance with these incomes their cost of operations, their own cost of financing for their investments and the debt servicing. Their budgeted expenditure is indicative of their functioning and investment operations.
c) The expenditure budgets of the Central Bank and of public bodies of financial brokerage subject to the monetary programme of the Government and to the supervision of the Superintendancy of Banks are indicative of its functioning operations and non financial investment.
d) The execution of budgetary expenditure of organizations pointed out in clauses b) and c) of this article, is subject, according to rules, to the compliance of policies and government rules related to the nature of its activities, including those referred to for modifications, transfers within budgets, as well as availability of their real incomes after having attended and providing for the fulfillment of their obligations, reserves, increases in capital, interest on net asset and other obligatory contributions. The transfer of investment expenditure or surplus of budgeted incomes to expenditures of functioning will not be allowed.
Article 9.- The Personnel Management System, for the sake of efficiency in public dealings, will determine the really necessary posts of work, the mechanisms and requirements to fill them, establish evaluatory systems and the payment for work, develop the talents and aptitudes of its workers and establish the procedures for the removal of the same.
Article 10.- The System of Management of Goods and Services will establish the form of contracting, handling and use of goods and services. This will be subject to the following rules:
a) It will seek prior availability of funds which will commit or define the conditions of financing required; it will differentiate between the different functions of seeking, authorizing the commencement and carrying out of the process of contracting; it will simplify the formalities and identify those responsible for the decisions of contracting with regard to quality, opportunity, and competitiveness of the supply price, including the terms of payment.
b) The organizations will employ the goods and services they contract, for the purposes envisaged in the Programming of Operations and will carry out the preventive maintenance and the safe keeping of the assets, identifying those responsible for their upkeep.
c) The rules will establish mechanisms for the disposal or opportune sale of goods, taking into account the specific needs of proprietary organizations. The sale of shares of mixed ownership companies and the transference and liquidation of State enterprises, will be carried out with prior legal or generic specific authorization, with the necessary prior publicity during and after these operations.
Article 11.- The Treasury and Public Credit System will manage the incomes, the financing or public credit and programme the commitments, obligations and payments in order to execute the budgeting of expenditures. It shall apply the following general precepts:
a) All internal or external public debt with time limit of a year or more shall be contracted by the highest authority of the State Treasury System, through the National Treasury Account or of the beneficiary organization which assumes responsibility of the respective debt servicing.
b) Public debts for a time period of less than a year will be contracted by each organization subject to the financial programming fixed by the highest authority of the Treasury System of the State.
c) The compliance of policies and rules established by the highest authority of the Treasury System of the State for the management of funds, shares and debts shall be obligatory for all Public Sector entities.
Article 12.- The System of Integrated Accountancy will incorporate budgetary, financial and capital resource transactions in a common system, suitable and trustworthy, as end-use and source of all data expressed in monetary terms. Based on financial and non financial data it will generate relevant and useful information for decision making by the authorities which regulate the State’s progress and that of each one of its entities so as to ensure that:
a) The specific accounting system for each entity or group of entities, responds to the nature of the same and its managerial and operational requirements, respecting its principles and norms of general application;
b) The Integrated Accountancy may identify whenever relevant, the cost of actions of the State and measure the results obtained.
Article 13.- Governmental Control will have as its objective the improvement in the efficiency in the collection and use of public resources and in the workings of the State; the reliability of the information which is produced about them; the procedures through which all authorities and executives give timely notice of the results of their management and the administrative capacity to halt or identify and verify inadequate management of the State’s resources.
Governmental control will apply on the functioning of the administration systems of public resources and will consist of:
a) The System of Internal Control which will consist of the instruments of prior and posterior control incorporated in the organizational plan, rules and procedure manuals of each entity and internal audit; and
b) The System of Posterior External Control which will be applied through external auditing of operations already carried out.
Article 14.- The procedures of prior internal control will apply to all the units of the entity before the execution of its operations and activities or before its actions have an effect. This comprises the verification of the compliance of norms which regulate them and the facts which back them up, as well as their convenience and appropriateness keeping in mind the purposes and programmes of the entity. The carrying out of prior controls by those responsible for internal audit or by persons, units or entities, different or external to the executing unit of the operations, is prohibited. Neither can there be created a special unit which would assume the management or centralization of the exercise of prior controls.
The posterior internal control will be carried out by:
a) Superior staff having the responsibility, in respect of results achieved by operations and activities under their direct competence; and
b) By the unit of internal audit.
Article 15.- Internal audit will be carried out by a specialised unit of the same entity which carries out the following activities in a separate, combined or total manner: evaluating the degree of performance and efficiency of the systems of administration and the instruments of internal control incorporated to them; determining the reliability of the records and financial statements and analysing the results and efficiency of the operations. The internal audit Unit will not participate in any other operation nor in any administrative activity and will depend on the highest executive authority of the entity, be this professional or not, independently preparing and executing the programme of its activities.
All its reports, as soon as they are concluded, will be sent in to the highest professional authority, if there is one, to the highest authority of the body which maintains a vigil on the audited organization and to the Comptroller General of the Republic.
Article 16.- External audit will be independent and impartial, and at any moment it can examine the operations and activities carried out by the organization for the purpose of judging the efficacy of the systems of administration and internal control; opining on the reliability of auditor’s and operational records, pronouncing judgement on the reasonableness of financial statements; and evaluating the results of efficiency and economy in operations. These activities of posterior external auditing can be carried out in a separate, combined or total manner, and its recommendations, discussed and accepted by the organization being audited, are of obligatory compliance.
Article 17.- The national systems of Planning and Public Investment will define the strategies and government policies which will be carried out through the systems of Administration and Control which govern the present law.
Article 18.- For the annual functioning of the systems of the Programming of Operations, Administrative Organization, Budget and Treasury and Public Credit, the national systems of Planning and Public Investment will harmonize and integrate the strategic plans of each organization and the public investment projects which have to be carried out, with medium and long scale plans, monetary policy, income realized and financing available, maintaining the unitary and integral character of budget preparation, of the treasury and public credit.
Article 19.- The systems of internal control and Posterior External Control, besides ensuring the efficiency of the systems of administration, will evaluate the result of the management taking into account, among other criteria, government policies defined by national systems of Planning and Public Investment.
Article 20.- All systems which the present Law deals with will be governed by steering bodies whose principal functions are to:
a) Issue the basic norms and procedures for each system;
b) Fix the terms and conditions to further elaborate secondary or specialised norms and the progressive introduction of systems;
c) Harmonize or evaluate, as required, the specific dispositions which each organization or group of organization which carry out similar activities will elaborate on depending on their nature and basic guidelines; and
d) Supervise the adequate functioning of specific decentralized or widely spread out systems and integrate the information produced by the same.
Article 21.- The steering body of the National Systems of Planning and Public Investment is the Ministry of Planning and Coordination, which, besides this, will also watch over the integration of norms and procedures of the said systems with the Systems of Administration and Governmental Control. At the same time it will also have the following functions and responsibilities:
a) Fixing the medium and long time framework in order to prepare the programmes of operations and the budgets of public organizations, on the basis of social and economic policy guidelines, developed by the Systems of Planning and Public Investment.
b) Ensuring the compatibility of strategic plans and objectives of public organizations with national strategic plans and objectives, developed by the Systems of Planning and Public Investment.
c) Elaborating, on the basis of the continued production of initiatives, the Plan of Public Investments which will contain projects of preinvestment and investment approved by sectoral and regional authorities.
d) Negotiating, in the name of the State and in the framework of the credit policy fixed by the Ministry of Finance, the securing of all external financing, whatever may be its modalities, origin and destination. As concerns the promotion of financing coming from bilateral relations, it will depend on the support of the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Culture.
f) Programming on the basis of years of implementation, the Plan of Public Financed Investments, evaluating its execution and maintaining it up to date based on the information produced by the Systems of Administration and Control,
Article 22.- The Ministry of Finance is the fiscal authority and guiding body of the systems of Programming and Operations; Administrative Organization, Budget, Administration of Personnel, Administration of Goods and Services, Treasury and Public Credit; and Integrated Audit. These systems will be established under the management and supervision of the Ministry of Finance which will participate in the design of economic policy and will be responsible for the development of fiscal policy and public credit of the Government.
Article 23.- The Comptroller General of the Republic is the guiding body of the system of Governmental Control, which will be established under its management and supervision. The Comptroller General of the Republic will issue the basic norms of internal and external control; it will evaluate the efficacy of the systems of internal control; carry out and supervise external control and exercise super vigilance of the rules of the audit systems of the Public Sector under the Auditor General of the State of the Ministry of Finance. It will likewise promote the establishment of the systems of audit and internal control and will guide the programmes of training and specialization of public servants in the management of systems which this law deals with.
Article 24.- The Central Bank of Bolivia is the only monetary authority of the country and the governing body of the whole system of collection of capital resources and financial intermediation and as such is responsible for the management of monetary reserves. Besides establishing norms and regulating the legal provisions referred to for the functioning of the said systems, it will propose and work out with the relevant bodies of the Executive Power the monetary, banking and credit policy and will execute it in an autonomous manner, with the capacity of denying fiscal credit or credit to the financial system when this exceeds the limits fixed in the Monetary Programme. The organizations of the non financial public sector will carry out operations with the Central Bank of Bolivia only through the mediation of the General Treasury of the Nation.
Article 25.- The Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Bolivia will be constituted by the President of the Bank and five directors, who will be appointed in the following manner:
a) The President of the Central Bank of Bolivia will be appointed by the President of the Republic from a short list proposed by the Chamber of Deputies. He will carry out his duties for four years and can be reelected. He will carry out the functions of the President of the Board of Directors, with the right to vote, plus a casting vote in case of a tie.
b) Three directors will be appointed by the President of the Republic and confirmed or rejected by the Chamber of Senators. They will carry out their functions for four years and can be again appointed for similar lengths of time. Nevertheless, these directors will be appointed for the first time from the application of the present Law, for periods of one two or three years respectively and can be later appointed for further periods of four years.
c) Two directors will be appointed by the Ministers of Finance and of Planning and Coordination, for representing the said Ministries without being able to carry out any other public function.
d) In case of renouncement or disqualification, the President, as well as any other of the directors mentioned in the earlier clauses, another person will be appointed in the same manner envisaged in the present article, who will carry out his duties till the end of the period of the one replaced and can later be appointed for other periods of four years.
Article 26.- The Superintendancy of Banks is the governing body of the system of control of all collection of public capital resources and of financial mediation of the country, including the Central Bank of Bolivia. For this purpose it will regulate the internal and external control of these activities and, without detriment to the authority of the Comptroller General of the Republic, will exercise or supervise external control determining, or if necessary demanding, the fulfillment of the legal provisions, technical norms and rules by all the public, private and mixed organizations who carry out mediation in the demand and supply of financial resources in the territory of the Republic as well as over ordinary or juridical individuals who carry out auxiliary activities of the financial system. On this basis it will opine on the efficacy of norms and regulations issued by the Central Bank for the functioning of the systems of collection and financial mediation and if needed it will put up to the Central Bank concrete recommendations in respect of the same.
The Superintendancy of Banks together, with the Central Bank of Bolivia, can incorporate into the field of its competence, other individuals or organizations who carry out financial operations, existing or to be created, when reasons of monetary and credit policy justify this.
Article 27.- Each organization of the Public Sector, in the framework of the basic rules laid down by the governing bodies, will work out the specific regulations for the functioning of the systems of Administration and Internal Control regulated by the present Law and the systems of Planning and Public Investment. The responsibility for its implantation rests on the highest authority of the organization. To this effect:
a) Any kind of guidance or safekeeping which one organization has to carry out in respect of another will consist of the promotion and vigilance of establishment and functioning of the systems of Planning and Investment, Administration and Internal Control. In the case of the Programming of Operations of public investment, the exercise of sectoral competence or tutelage of another organization will consist in the evaluation of the corresponding projects prior to their inclusion in the Programme of Public Investments.
b) The tutelage includes the power of exercising posterior external control, without detriment to the function of the Comptroller, as also the obligation to carry out timely posterior control of the organizations whose reduced number of operations and total sum of administered resources do not justify the functioning of a unit of self internal audit.
c) All entities, officials or persons who collect, receive, pay and keep a watch over funds, shares or goods of the State, have the obligation to render accounts of the administration under their charge through an accounting system specifying their background documentation and the status of their records.
d) For the purposes of posterior external control, the entities subject to Government Control should send the Comptroller a copy of their contracts of the corresponding background documentation within five days of it having been completed.
e) After three months of the completion of the fiscal exercise, each entity with its own capital resources and financial autonomy will be compelled to submit to the entity which is exercising a tutelage over it and to the Auditor General of the State, and will make available to the Comptroller General of the State, the financial states of the earlier management, together with the corresponding notes and the report of the internal auditor.
f) The highest professional (collegial) authority, if there is one, and the higher executive of each entity will answer before the Comptroller General of the Republic for respecting the independence of the unit of internal audit, and the latter for the impartiality and quality of their work.
g) The juridical units of the Public Sector entities are responsible for the efficacy in the compliance of obligations relating to the defence of the interests of the State. They should send periodic reports to the Comptroller on the state of administrative processes, on the requirements of payment and judicial actions under their charge, in accordance with the provisions of the present Law.
Article 28.- All public servants will answer for the results obtaining in the carrying out of functions, duties, and powers assigned to their post. For this purpose:
a) The administrative, executive, civil and penal responsibility will be determined taking into account the results of actions or omissions.
b) The legality of the operations and activities carried out by all public servants will be presumed until the opposite is proven.
c) The term "public servant" used in the present Law, refers to dignitaries, officials and all people who lend their services in a relation of dependence with state authorities, whatever may be the source of their remuneration.
d) The terms "authority" and "executive" are used in the present Law as synonymous and refer to public servants who by their place in the hierarchy and functions are the principal responsible agents for the management of organizations of which they form a part.
Article 29.- The responsibility is administrative when the action or omission countervenes the juridical administrative legislation and the norms that regulate the official conduct of the public servant. This will be determined by an internal process of each organization which will take into account the results of the auditing if there are any. The competent authority will apply, according to the gravity of the default, the sanctions of: fines of upto twenty per cent of the monthly remuneration; suspension of upto a maximum of thirty days; or dismissal.
Article 30.- The responsibility is executive when the authority or executive does not render accounts which are referred to in clause c) of article 1 and article 28 of the present Law; when it does not fulfill what is envisaged in the first paragraph and clauses d), e) or f) of article 27 of the present Law ; or when it is found that the deficiencies or carelessness of the executive management is of such a magnitude that it does not allow one to achieve, within the existing circumstances, reasonable results in terms of efficacy, efficiency and economy. In these cases, the sanction envisaged in clause g) of article 42 of the present Law will be applied.
Article 31.- The responsibility is civil when the action or omission of the public servant or of the ordinary private and juridical individuals causes harm to the State which can be valued in money terms. Its decision will be subject to the following precepts:
a) The hierarchically superior who would have authorised the undue use of goods, services and resources of the State or when the said use was made possible by the deficiencies of the systems of administration and internal control embedded in the organization, will be civilly co responsible.
b) Ordinary or juridical individuals will incur civil responsibility even if, though they may not be public servants, they benefit unduly with public resources or cause harm to the State assets and that of its organizations.
c) When various persons are responsible of the same act or deed which would have caused harm to the State, they will be collectively responsible.
Article 32.- The state entity judicially sentenced to pay damages and losses to public and third party organizations will repeat the payment against the authority which may be responsible for the actions and deeds which motivated the sanction.
Article 33.- There will not be any administrative responsibility, executive or civil when it is proved that the decision was taken in order to gain greater benefits and to safeguard the goods of the organization, within the risks inherent to the operation and the circumstances in force when the decision was taken, or when situations of a greater magnitude originated the decision or influenced the final result of the operation.
Article 34.- The responsibility is penal when the action or omission of the public servant and of the individuals, is found classified in the Penal Code.
Article 35.- When the acts or deeds examined present signs of penal or civil responsibility, the public servant or auditor will bring them to the knowledge of the relevant legal authority and the latter through the legal competent authority will directly request the judge concerned, the precautionary and preparatory measures of legal action which might take place or will file a complaint about the facts before the Public Ministry.
Article 36.- All public servants or ex public servants of the organizations of the State or private persons with contractual relations with the State whose accounts and contracts are subject to posterior control, internal or external audit, will be obliged to show documentation or necessary information for the inspection and provide the required copies, with the limitations contained in articles 51, 52 and 56 of the Commercial Code.
The authorities of organizations of the Public Sector will ensure the access of ex public servants to relevant documentation which might be demanded from them for posterior control. Those who do not follow what is laid out in the present article will be liable for sanctions laid down in articles 154, 160 and 161 respectively of the Penal Code.
Article 37.- The Internal or External Posterior Control will not modify the administrative actions which would have ended the claims of private individuals and will firmly determine the accountability of the authority which expressly authorised them or by omission if there is any.
Article 38.- Professionals and other public servants are accountable for the reports and documents which they endorse. Lawyers will also be accountable for the legal clientele of the Public Sector when the formalities of the lawsuit they are carrying out are full of procedural errors or when the appeals are declared out of order due to their formal aspects.
Article 39.- The judge or tribunal which knows of the lawsuit at the time of the payment of civil damage will update the amount of the debt considering for this purpose, the parameters which the Central Bank of Bolivia applies in the maintenance of the value of financial assets in national currency. The administrative and judicial processes envisaged in this law, in none of their petitions or measures, will occasion a sentence of costs and professional honorariums and these will be charged to the respective parties of the lawsuit.
Article 40.- Judicial actions and obligations emerging from civil accountability established in the present Law, will be prescribed within ten years, computable from the day of the act which has given rise to the action or from the last legal action. The time period of the prescription will be suspended or interrupted in accordance with the lawsuits and in the manner laid forth in the Civil Code. In order to initiate action for deeds or actions which have taken place before the coming into effect of the present law, this term of prescription will be calculated from the date of the coming into effect.
Article 41.- The Comptroller General will exercise Posterior External Control with operational, technical and administrative autonomy. In order to ensure its independence and impartiality vis-à-vis the State administration, the budget of the Comptroller, made out by the latter and based on its programming of operations, will be incorporated without modification by the Ministry of Finances to the General Draft Budget of the Nation, for its consideration for the National Congress. Once approved, the Ministry of Finance will release the amounts which the Comptroller requires in accordance with the funding programmes made out by the same.
Article 42.- For the exercise of Posterior External Control the following powers are laid down:
a) The Comptroller can contract the services of firms or qualified and independent professionals or order the Public Sector organizations and the persons included in article 5 of the present Law, the contracting of the said services, pointing out the scope of the work, when it might require specialised external audit or consultancy or when there is a shortage of necessary professional resources for executing the required work. In all cases the contracting will be subject to the rules which the Comptroller General issues for this purpose.
b) All reports of internal or external audit will be sent to the Comptroller immediately after they are finished, in the form and with the documentation which the rules point out.
c) The Comptroller can know about the programmes, the tasks and roles of the audits which are carried out by the public organizations and the independent professionals or firms, without taking on the responsibility for them.
d) The Comptroller can at any moment examine the records and operations carried out by the organizations subject to Government Control.
e) In case of the non compliance of time periods and conditions for the progressive implantation of systems in some of these organizations, the Comptroller General of the Republic can order:
- The freezing of the bank current accounts of the organization
- Suspension of funds by the treasuries of the State or any other financial body.
f) In case of the non compliance of the present Law by the public servant, the Comptroller General of the Republic, as part of his duties or due to an appeal made by the Monitoring Bodies of the authorities which exercise a vigilance, can recommend to the highest executive of the organization or the higher authority, that he impose the relevant sanctions according to article 29 of the present Law, without detriment to the executive, civil and penal authority which there might arise.
g) In case of executive responsibility determined by the Comptroller General of the Republic, the latter can recommend to the highest collegial management, only when it is not involved in the deficiencies observed, and to the higher authority which exercises vigilance on the organization, the suspension or dismissal of the principal executive and, if so, of the collegial management, without detriment to the civil or penal responsibility which it might give rise to, informing the respective organizations of the National Congress.
h) For the case envisaged in the last part of article 36 of the present law, within twenty four hours of the appeal of the Comptroller, the Public Prosecutor of the District in Penal matters, accompanied by a copy of the first reminder, will issue a summons order in accordance with the Penal Code and its Procedures.
Article 43.- Without detriment to the judicial actions which the public organizations will appropriately undertake against those who do not fulfill the obligations contracted, the Comptroller General of the Republic, at the request of the organization or as part of its duties, on the basis of the audit reports, can issue a judgement in accordance with the following precepts:
a) The judgement of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the reports and documentation which uphold it, shall constitute preconstituted proof for the administrative, executive and civil action which might take place.
b) With the judgement of accountability, the presumed accountable persons shall be notified and as part of the functions, the organization shall be sent a copy of all the operations, so that it carry out the judgement and, if in case it requires the payment of the determined liability, it should concede to the debtor ten days in which to do it, with a warning that it shall initiate against it relevant legal action.
c) In case the relevant authority has not initiated the administrative process or judicial action within twenty days of receiving the judgement, the Comptroller General of the Republic or whoever represents the Comptroller in each capital of a province, shall draw up the relevant case for the dismissal of the executive and the chief legal adviser, initiating against them the judicial action which it may give rise to, insisting on the liability with the new authorities for the proceedings which led to the dismissal of their predecessors, under warning of equal sanctions.
Article 44.- The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic can start proceedings against and set in motion administrative, coercive financial, civil and penal lawsuits related to economic damages to the State. It will be represented by the Comptroller General of the Republic or by those who represent the Office in each capital of the provinces, those who have the authority to delegate these powers.
Article 45.- The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic shall propose to the Executive Power, for its applicability through the Supreme Decrees, the regulation concerning Chapter V "Responsibility for Public Functions" and the exercise of functions which have been assigned to it in this law.
Article 46.- The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, shall only carry out the functions that correspond to its character as Higher Body of Later External Government Control as is established in the present law. To this effect it shall coordinate with the Executive Power for the elimination or transference of any other authority or activity which it might have been exercising.
Article 47.- Coactive or coercive fiscal jurisdiction is created for the cognizance of all the lawsuits which are lodged due to the actions of public servants, different organizations of public law or private individuals or private and judicial entities which might have entered into administrative contracts with the State. Through this civil responsibilities defined in article 31 of the present Law are determined. Those which refer to work contracts, supply of materials, goods and services and others of a similar nature are administrative contracts.
Article 48.- Questions of a civil nature not dealt with in article 47, nor those of a penal commercial or tax related character which are the function of ordinary and tax related jurisdiction, nor those which although related to acts of public administration are attributable by law to other jurisdictions, do not fall under coactive fiscal jurisdiction.
Article 49.- Conflicts of responsibility which may arise between coactive fiscal jurisdiction and other jurisdictions or tribunals shall be resolved as the rule referred to in article 51 of the present Law may determine
Article 50.- Coactive fiscal jurisdiction cannot be extended as regards territorial competence and cannot be delegated. Its exercise by administrative or other authorities will give rise to the nullification of its complete right as regards its legal proceedings and resolutions.
Article 51.- The Fiscal Coactive Tribunal will form part of the Judicial Power. Its organization and the Fiscal Coactive Procedure will be determined through specific law, the draft of which will be presented by the Executive Power within the first thirty sessions of the next Ordinary Legislature.
Article 52.- The Law Decree 14933 of the 29th of September 1977 is elevated to the rank of law, only with regard to the Fiscal Coactive Procedure, which will govern in so far as the law which the earlier article refers to enters in force, except in appealed cases which will be tried by the Fiscal Tribunal of the Nation.
