Bill 504.

Summary.

The bill proposes to strengthen public procurement in the Republic of Panama by creating a Public Digital List. Its title identifies the list’s subject matter as persons convicted and sanctioned for offenses against public administration. Article 1 presents the creation of the list as the means by which the bill pursues its objective in public procurement. It names the register the “Public Digital List” and provides that the text will subsequently call it “the List.” The proposal thus places the digital publication of information about certain persons in the context of public procurement.

Article 1 refers to both natural persons and legal persons. For convicted persons, the available portion of the article links inclusion in the List to a conviction by a final and enforceable judgment. That reference to a particular kind of judgment forms part of the description of the persons covered by the bill’s stated purpose. The title also refers to sanctioned persons and identifies the relevant offenses as offenses against public administration. These terms describe the kind of individual or corporate information to which the proposed digital instrument is directed. The article expressly mentions both natural and legal persons, so the scope it describes encompasses both categories of subject.

The provision begins with a statement of purpose. It brings together the aim of strengthening public procurement, the creation of a list that is public and digital, and the identification of the persons to whom it relates. The short name “the List” identifies the same proposed instrument in the bill. Creating the List is the measure stated in the article; public procurement in the Republic of Panama is the field to which that measure is connected. The reference to a final and enforceable judgment concerns the convicted persons described in the available portion of the article. In this way, the proposal links those persons’ judicial convictions to a digital instrument intended for public access.

In the order of the text provided, the title sets out the overall purpose and Article 1 states its object. The article identifies the instrument that would be created and begins to define whom it would cover. The available wording ends after the reference to a final and enforceable judgment, so this description of the object is confined to that wording. Given its subject matter, the bill could be of interest to public entities engaged in procurement in the Republic of Panama, to natural and legal persons participating in that process, and to economic sectors that contract with the State. It also concerns public administration through the category of offenses identified in the title.