Argentine Legal Digest Bill Makes Progress in Congress

On May 8, 2013, the Bicameral Committee on the Follow-up and Coordination of the Argentine Legal Digest (the “Bicameral Committee”) voted favorably on the bill which seeks to identify and list all national laws currently in force, laws which are no longer in force, and regulations enacted by supranational or intergovernmental bodies of which Argentina is a member.

As informed by the chairman of the Bicameral Committee, Senator Aníbal Fernández, the bill which approves the Argentine Legal Digest (“ALD”) will be submitted to the House of Representatives and it is expected that it will be discussed and possibly approved within the next few weeks.

I. Background

In 1998, Law No. 24,967 set up the principles and procedures to consolidate all national laws in force by means of preparing and approving the ALD.

Law No. 24,967 provided that the ALD should contain: (i) all national general laws in force and their implementing regulations; (ii) an annex with the “historical law” or laws which are not in force (repealed laws or laws which are no longer applied); and (iii) an annex with regulations enacted by supranational or intergovernmental bodies of which Argentina is a member.

It was also provided that the ALD should be elaborated by the Federal Executive Branch (the “PEN”). For this purpose, the PEN appointed a Committee of Jurists. The Committee of Jurists had to carry out this assignment within a year. This term could be extended by the PEN for another year.

Law No. 24,967 provided that (i) all the laws and regulations that were not included in the ALD as legislation “in force” would be deemed abrogated and that (ii) the “historical law” would have the same value as the general principles of law according to section 16 of the Civil Code.

The work of the Commission of Jurists took a much longer term than expected and finally in July 2011, the PEN submitted the bill on the ALD (the “PEN’s Bill”) to Congress. In the PEN’s Bill it is informed that 3,134 valid general laws and decrees with the same force as a law were detected among a total of 32,207 laws and decrees reviewed. In the PEN’s Bill it was pointed out that the review and classification of decrees that approved implementing regulations and other kinds of decrees (other than those with the same force as law) was still pending.

Since then, the PEN’s Bill was analyzed by the Bicameral Committee, which included several amendments to it. Moreover, those laws that were passed after the submission of the Executive’s Bill were included in the lists contained in the ALD.

Now that the Bicameral Committee has approved a new bill on the ALD (the “Bicameral Committee Bill”), the initiative is ready to be discussed by the two Houses of Congress.

II. The Bicameral Committee’s Bill – Main provisions

The Bicameral Committee’s Bill provides for the approval of the ALD as updated to 31 March 2013. It also sets forth that: (i) the laws included in Annex I are declared “in force”; (ii) the laws included in Annex II are declared “no longer in force”, and (iii) the reference to the rules approved by supranational or intergovernmental bodies of which Argentina is a member, which are identified in Annex III.

The Bicameral Committee’s Bill sets forth that the laws included in the ALD shall be identified with a letter according to the area of law they correspond to: ADM) Administrative Law; ACU) Culture, Science and Technology; AED) Education; ASA) Public Health; ASE) Security; ASO) Social Action and Development; B) Customs; C) Aeronautical - Space; D) Banking, Monetary and Financial; E) Civil; F) Commercial; G) Community; H) Constitutional; I) Communications; J) Diplomatic and Consular; K) Economic; L) Tax M) Industrial; N) Private International Law O) Public International Law; P) Labor; Q) Environment; R) Military; S) Criminal; T) Politic; U) Civil and Commercial Procedure; V) Criminal Procedure; W) Public Provincial and Municipal; X) Natural Resources; Y) Social Security; Z) Transportation and Insurance.

The Bicameral Committee Bill also provides that a Permanent Bicameral Committee on the ALD (the “New Bicameral Committee”) will be set up to replace the Bicameral Committee.

The New Bicameral Committee will be in charge of, among other tasks, updating the ALD, which will be done with the technical assistance of the Parliamentary Information Direction of the Congress. The task of updating the ALD includes the consolidation in one text of analogous rules on the same issues and the approval of texts that were regulated more than once or were partially modified. The amendments to be introduced by the New Bicameral Committee cannot alter the spirit of the relevant laws. Updates to the ALD should be approved by both Houses of Congress.

Moreover, the Bicameral Committee’s Bill empowers the PEN to determine the specific enforcement authority of the laws. It is not clear whether this power may be exercised only with respect to laws that do not provide for its enforcement authority or if the PEN is also empowered to amend the enforcement authority provided for in the corresponding law.

If the ALD is approved, the New Bicameral Committee will receive consultations and observations (with respect to the framework, consolidation of the text and validity of a rule) for a period of 180 days as from the approval of the ALD, and will adopt a resolution in this respect. These resolutions of the New Bicameral Committee will be informed to the Houses of Congress and no other ratification procedure shall be required. Once this 180-day term has expired and the New Bicameral Committee has ruled on the observations and consultations made in relation to the ALD, the official publication of the definitive version of the ALD will be ordered.

Finally, the Bicameral Committee Bill provides for the abrogation of Law No. 20,004 (which empowers the PEN to enact consolidated texts of laws, without amending their text) and Law No. 24,967, which was mentioned before. If Law No. 24,967 is abrogated, the provision that, as has already been explained above, provided that the “historical law” would be considered as general principles of law, would not come into effect.

III. Final comment

It will be very important to follow the evolution closely of this matter and, if the ALD bill is approved by Congress, to analyze the final list of laws that are still in force (and the corresponding consolidated texts) in detail, in order to detect possible doubts or inconsistencies in the regulatory framework of specific areas and, if so, take the appropriate course of action for each case.