With the recent DNU issued by the National Government and published in the BO on Thursday, December 21, 2023, a series of debates have been opened regarding the substance and form of the same; that is, regarding its content and the opportunity, merit and convenience of the means used.
Regarding the second point and without starting a debate on it, on this occasion I will limit myself to pointing out that from the issuance of the DNU, the followed The corresponding procedures are the following: The Chief of Cabinet must send the DNU to the corresponding Bicameral Commission within 10 days. This Commission is made up of 8 deputies and 8 senators. In turn, the Commission must issue an opinion on the Decree, regarding the substance and the form (that is, what is regulated and the method chosen for it) and submit this opinion to the respective Chambers within a period of 10 (working) days. If after this period the opinion has not been sent, the Chambers are authorized to deal with it ex officio. In Congress, the DNU can only be accepted or rejected in its entirety; no modifications can be made to its text. But in order to be rejected, the disapproval of both Chambers (Deputies and Senators) is needed. This is due to the regulations of Law 26.122. Furthermore, even if it is accepted, there is the path of its examination before the Judiciary regarding the control of constitutionality, such as the precedent of the Verrochi case in which the Supreme Court determined the need for at least two requirements to be met. 1) that it is impossible to enact the law through the ordinary procedure provided for by the Constitution, that is, that the Chambers of Congress cannot meet due to circumstances of force majeure that prevent it, as would occur in the case of war actions or natural disasters that prevent their meeting or the transfer of legislators to the Federal Capital; or 2) that the situation that requires a legislative solution is so urgent that it must be solved immediately, within a period incompatible with that required by the normal procedure of the laws (consideration 9°). Rulings 322:1726, “Verrocchi”.
Regarding the fondo and in particular with regard to certain activities related to the practice of the profession of Customs Broker, I agree with what was stated by Dr. Hector G. Vital Albarracin in his report recently published by the Customs Brokers Center (1); I understand that an opportunity has been lost to address issues related to their professional responsibility, as has also been pointed out in a previous note in this same medium (2).
Furthermore, the deregulation proposed in the DNU puts the quality of the exercise of this professional service at stake, as it leaves aside the issue of the professional training of the Customs Broker, on a par with any other liberal profession. For such professional exercise, prior training is required (currently tertiary) and passing exams in different subjects, an aptitude exam, guarantees and other requirements.
Although I believe that there are too many requirements and regulations, which do not help to improve the service or the professional quality, this does not mean that in order to eliminate excessive bureaucratic obstacles all requirements should be eliminated, seeking a broad sense of competence but which undermines the quality of a profession. In a parallel analysis, the same would occur with other professions. Could we imagine such deregulation for the practice of medicine, architecture, engineering, for example?
The pursuit of a goal with good intentions, which I understand to be so, is not being judged on this occasion; but the exercise of a profession requires minimum requirements of suitability that are regulated. If in any case such requirements are excessive and impediments to the facilitation of trade, then let us debate how to avoid excessive bureaucracy, but let us not fall, for the sake of facilitating and improving competition, into a situation that could lead to a deterioration in the quality of the professional service that we are seeking to deregulate.
- VIDAL ALBARRACIN, Hector, Deregulation and liberal professions: An interdisciplinary analysis. www.cda.org.ar 22.12.2023/XNUMX/XNUMX.
- COLONEL, Guillermo Felipe and SALARY, Guillermo, Scope of the criminal liability of the Customs Broker www.aduananews.com 14.11.2023
The author is a lawyer and member of the Institute of Customs Law and International Trade of the Argentine Association of Constitutional Justice.
