The judgment of the Third Chamber of this high court addresses the issue of the competence of municipalities in land use matters.
The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) established that the dialogue between the high courts is necessary due to multiple factors, one of them being the fact that the rule of delimitation of their respective competencies does not actually draw a precise dividing line regarding the matters to be heard by the respective courts, as established by Ruling No. SCJ-TS-24-1930, dated September 30, 2024.
The above is summarized as follows: the Supreme Court is responsible for the interpretation of the law and the Constitutional Court for the interpretation of the Constitution.
The decision of the Third Chamber cites rulings TC/0152/13 dated September 12, 2013, and TC/0296/16 dated July 18, 2016, which set forth certain criteria related to the appeal under analysis with respect to the competence of the Council of Aldermen and the Urban Planning Office as an organ of the Mayor's Office to issue particular or specific land use permits.
The judgment makes reference to the fact that from a correct interpretation of the Constitution and Law No. 176-07 of the National District and the municipalities derives the power of the mayor's office to resolve the particular, concrete and specific land use requests, since these are administrative acts of an executive-technical nature of its competence as executive body, while the Board of Aldermen is a regulatory and supervisory body exclusively, which will have the power, in this matter of land use, to approve regulations, policies or general plans to be implemented by the mayor's offices.
In this sense, the acting judges specify that the Board of Aldermen is not empowered to resolve on particular, concrete and specific land use requests (certificates of no objection), which are executive-technical attributions of the urban planning offices as an organ of the Mayor's Office.
However, as a consequence of these binding and mandatory precedents, the appeals filed by the National District and the commercial company Constructora Inmobiliaria Molina, SRL and Jorge Serrano Noboa were rejected.
To analyze the complete sentence issued by justices Manuel Alexis Read Ortiz (president of the aforementioned chamber), Manuel R. Herrera Carbuccia, Moisés A. Ferrer Landrón, Anselmo Alejandro Bello F. and Rafael Vásquez Goico, click here.
