The Council of the Judiciary implemented electronic letters rogatory in order to promote the speed of judicial proceedings. Before the implementation of this new system, the parties had to obtain the letters rogatory and file them into the court of the other jurisdiction in charge of the judicial assistance. This entailed an additional expense for the party due to travel costs.  Moreover, the letters rogatory changed its original identification number, which resulted in the lost of the documents.

Now the judge sends the letters rogatory through e-mail to the judge from the other jurisdiction within a few seconds. Once complaint, the judge sends it back through e-mail.

On May 29^th, 2018, the Constitutional Court with 5 votes in favor, one absence and 3 votes against ruled on the Satya case and ordered the registration of Satya under the surname of her same sex parents. The Court found that the negative of registration issued by the Civil Register violated the child´s constitutional right to identity, equality, non-discrimination and the protection of the diverse types of families.

As a result, the Court annulled previous rulings on the case and ordered the investigation and potential sanctions to the responsible administrative and judicial authorities. In addition, the Court ordered the Civil Register to offer public apologies to Satya and her family and to train the institution´s personnel in that regard.

The Constitutional Court delivered judgment 018-18-SIN-CC on August, 1st, 2018 declaring that the amendments proposed by the National Assembly on December 3rd, 2015 were illegal. The only exception were the amendments related to articles 2 and 4, which modified articles 114 and 144 of the Constitution as those were reformed due to the outcome of the referéndum that took place on February 2018. The Constitutional Court observed that the principle of supremacy shall be respected and concluded that the National Assembly did not do it by voting on the amendments as a sole unit and not individually.

The Court ordered the National Assembly to adopt this decision within a year in order for the voting process of future constitutional amendments to be more rigid. Consistently, for future amendments proposala, each one of them shall be individually deliberated, voted and approved.

Following the entry into force of the Organic Law for the Productive Development, Attraction of Investment, Employment Creation, Stability and Fiscal Balance, the Companies, Securities and Insurance Superintendence, has resolved to provide legal standards for it’s application by means of decision No. SCVS-INC-DNCD-2018-0035, rendered on September 6, 2018.

The remission of debts apply on moratorium interests, penalties, costs of enforced collection procedures, press releases in accordance with Articles 47 and 48 of the Companies Act, and other charges derived of Companies, Securities and Insurance Superintendence liabilities, until August 21, 2018. In order to begin the remission procedure, the concerned party must present a request in this entity.

Nevertheless, it is important to stress that the non-compliance of liabilities produce penalties that are not subject to the application of this Law. Oh the other hand, the liabilities coming due after August 21, 2018, and tax obligations of 2017 could not apply this provision.

From August 21, 2018, the concerned party has 90 business days in order to pay the debt capital and apply the remission granted by the Law. In addition to that, for the parties it is possible to request payment facilities that could be granted for one year, and it is not imperative to credit the 20% of the debt, as required in the Tax Code.
Additionally, when the concerned party violates the facilities, in more than two consecutive contributions, the remission looses its effect and the debt could be charged in its entirety.

For payments made before August 21, 2018, those should be charged as installments of the liabilities and not for the interests, yet if those exceed the whole amount of the obligation. In these cases, the remission is applied over the interests, and then, the concerned party that has not paid the whole amount of the obligation, must pay within the stated time limit in the Organic Law for the Productive Development, Attraction of Investment, Employment Creation, Stability and Fiscal Balance.

Finally, the resolution establishes that de debts that are being collected by means of enforced procedures could be discontinued when the concerned party request a remission over this liability within the 30 days after the entry on force of the Law. Those periods of suspension could be not considered as prescription period.