Bill 203.

Summary.

Article 1 proposes approving in its entirety the Treaty on the Electronic Transmission of Requests for International Legal Cooperation between Central Authorities, concluded in Medellín, and incorporates its text into the bill. The treaty establishes Iber@ as the formal and preferred means of transmitting requests between Central Authorities when a treaty in force between the parties provides for direct communication between them. It covers requests in criminal, civil, commercial, labor, and administrative matters, among others, together with responses, subsequent steps, and related communications. Use of Iber@ is optional. The platform must be available at least in Spanish and Portuguese.

Documents transmitted through Iber@ are treated as originals or authentic documents for the purposes of the applicable treaty and require no additional physical delivery. The platform validates electronic transmission; examination of the content remains with the competent authorities. When a Central Authority receives a request through Iber@, it must send subsequent communications about its execution through the same channel, unless the nature of the request or a later development makes that inadvisable; it must then inform the sender. Use with the legal effects provided by the treaty is limited to accredited users designated to represent Central Authorities.

Iber@ must record transmissions, identify the sender and recipient, record the day and time, and generate acknowledgments of receipt for both. Each user must apply the electronic signature supplied by the platform. Where a date of receipt must be established, the request is deemed received on the next business day after the acknowledgment is generated, using the business day and official time of the receiving Central Authority. Communications that interrupt or suspend a time limit are received on the day and at the time shown in the acknowledgment. Only the parties involved may access the requests and accompanying documents; the General Secretariat of IberRed (Secretaría General de IberRed) may access only statistical data or indicators. Central Authorities must identify national technical contact points upon ratification or accession.

The General Secretariat of IberRed is responsible for Iber@’s development, management, operation, security, and data protection. It may provide the service itself or contract with a third party, accredits users, sets technical requirements in a manual, provides support and training, and submits an annual report to the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Ibero-American Countries (Conferencia de Ministros de Justicia de los Países Iberoamericanos), the Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors, and the Ibero-American Judicial Summit (Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana). Requests and their execution remain subject to the treaties in force that apply to each case. States must make their best efforts to handle requests as quickly as possible, with particular attention to urgent cases. The parties must agree on financing rules that establish proportional annual contributions.

The treaty governs signature, ratification, accession by other States, denunciation, suspension, and the diplomatic resolution of disputes that Central Authorities cannot resolve. Requests already in progress continue to completion following denunciation. The depositary publishes information on ratifications, accessions, and notifications. Transitional provisions require approval of the financing rules and full operation of Iber@ in accordance with the technical requirements before the treaty enters into force; they also require a proposed technical manual. Article 2 provides that the proposed law would take effect upon promulgation. Its provisions concern Central Authorities, the General Secretariat of IberRed, and the Ibero-American bodies named in the treaty, and may be relevant to those handling cross-border judicial matters in criminal, civil, commercial, labor, and administrative fields.