In brief
By means of Decree No. 971/2024 ("Decree"), the national executive branch regulated the amendments introduced to Law No. 19,549 on Administrative Procedures (LNPA) by Law No. 27,742 on Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentineans ("Bases Law") regarding the positive administrative silence. Through the Decree, several procedures and requests will be considered tacitly approved if the national public administration does not respond.
Specifically, the Decree (i) approved the lists of administrative authorizations to which the positive administrative silence would and would not apply, (ii) entrusted the chief of the cabinet of ministers to update these lists and (iii) established the obligation to digitalize all administrative procedures for obtaining authorizations within five business days from the publication of the Decree.
In depth
- Modifications to the administrative silence in the Bases Law
The Bases Law amended Article 10 of the LNPA and established that when a regulation requires an administrative authorization for individuals to carry out a certain act within the framework of exercising a regulated power of the administration, the lack of response from the state within the established term will be considered in a positive sense, i.e., as granting the request.
It also established that the positive silence will not apply to matters of public health, the environment, or the provision of public services or rights over public property. It enabled the possibility of including other specific cases of exception by means of regulations.
- The regulation of positive administrative silence in Decree No. 695/24
Decree No. 695/24 amended the Regulations on Administrative Procedures ("Regulations"), regulating the institute of positive silence of the national public administration by establishing the following:
- An administrative authorization shall be understood as an act by means of which the administration enables the administered party to exercise a preexisting right once the fulfillment of the conditions for its issuance has been verified, regardless of its formal qualification as an authorization.
- Positive silence shall not apply to permits.
- The administrative procedures for obtaining a regulated authorization must be processed entirely in a digital format, through the "Trámites a Distancia" (TAD) platform or the one used by the corresponding entity for such purposes.
- The chief of the cabinet of ministers should do the following:
- Prepare the schedule for the implementation of the positive silence in the centralized and decentralized public administration, which was approved through Administrative Decision No. 836/24.
- Submit to the national executive branch — after receiving a report from the corresponding entity — a list of specific authorizations to which the positive silence should not apply.
- Procedures approved by the Decree
On 1 November 2024, the Decree was published in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic. Through the Decree, the following was established:
- The lists of administrative procedures for obtaining administrative authorizations that are both included and exempted from the application of the positive silence were approved (Annex I-Annex II). Among others, many procedures of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic; the former Federal Administration of Public Revenues; the Secretariat of Commerce; the National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology; and the National Securities Commission have been included in the positive silence regime.
- The chief of the cabinet of ministers was entrusted with updating the aforementioned lists of administrative procedures.
- Entities of the centralized and decentralized national public administration must request that the procedures to which the positive silence applies, which are currently processed in paper format, are incorporated into TAD or into the platform that the corresponding entity uses for such purposes within a term no longer than five administrative business days, counted from the date the Decree was published.
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