Colombia: New Labour Procedural Code Bill to be Submitted for First Debate in Congress
The new Labour Procedural Code Bill that was recently filed will establish a new Labour and Social Security Procedural Code with the purpose of streamlining procedures, unifying rulings, and adapting the administration of justice in labour matters to the current times.
The labour initiative seeks to take advantage of technological advances and virtuality in the administration of justice through digital tools that streamline labour procedures, allowing workers, employers, and government entities to interact quickly and securely, facilitating access to justice.
Currently, there are gaps, ambiguities and loopholes in the regulations that have led to chaos and disparity of criteria in labour trials instead of greater clarity and speed.
The initiative proposes, among other aspects, to abolish single instance proceedings and allow disputes to be processed in two, the intention being to provide more guarantees for the disputants; it also proposes to increase the threshold of the amount that determines the jurisdiction of municipal judges (up to 40 minimum legal monthly wages in force) or district judges (more than 40 minimum wages). This is because the current amount and the status of single-instance proceedings have overburdened district judges.
It also introduces the figure of an advanced ruling, allowing certain controversies to be resolved more quickly without the need to follow the regular procedure of the process, avoiding the need to exhaust all the stages.
Finally, a generalized request is to unify the term for all responses that must be made in the development of labour proceedings, establishing a period of three days. In addition, it specifies how to compute all the terms established in this proposed new code.
For additional information on any matter related to labour issues in Colombia, please contact Angélica María Carrión Barrero (Partner) of López & Asociados at angelica.carrion@lopezasociados.net or visit www.lopezasociados.net
For more information, please contact Joseph Granato, Communications Manager at L&E Global at joseph.granato@leglobal.org.
