Draft bill 201.

Summary.

The draft bill would add provisions to Cabinet Decree No. 224 of July 16, 1969, concerning lottery ticket and chance booklets issued by the National Charity Lottery (Lotería Nacional de Beneficencia). It would make certain public officials ineligible to receive, hold by concession, transfer, assign, administer or benefit from such booklets, directly or through another natural or legal person. The restriction would apply from the time an official takes office or begins performing the duties of the position.

The covered officials are the president and vice president of the Republic; ministers and deputy ministers; principal and alternate members of the National Assembly; justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Electoral Tribunal (Tribunal Electoral) and the Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Cuentas); the two prosecutors general; the comptroller and deputy comptroller general; the ombudsman; mayors, deputy mayors and principal and alternate corregimiento (district) representatives; directors and other specified managers of autonomous and semiautonomous entities; and officials holding managerial posts in the National Charity Lottery. The restriction would also extend to their spouses, relatives within the second degree of blood relationship and relatives within the first degree by marriage.

A spouse or relative could retain a booklet if its ownership or concession was lawfully granted before the public official took office and the National Charity Lottery certifies, through a technical socioeconomic assessment, that the income is indispensable to the holder and the holder’s household. While the official remains in office, retaining the booklet under this exception would confer no right to an increased allocation of ticket fractions or to transfer the booklet to a third party.

The National Charity Lottery would maintain a public nationwide register of booklet holders in the transparency section of its website, updating and publishing it monthly. At a minimum, the register would show each holder’s full name, personal identity card number, lottery seller code and assigned agency. An unjustified failure to publish or update it would give rise to administrative liability for the responsible official, alongside any other liability established by law.

Under the transitional procedure, spouses and relatives whose booklets were granted before the relevant official took office would have sixty calendar days from commencement to request the assessment. A timely request would suspend cancellation proceedings until the National Charity Lottery’s General Directorate issues a reasoned decision. If no request were filed within that period, or the assessment found the income was not indispensable, the Directorate would initiate cancellation proceedings on its own motion and, where appropriate, forward the records to the competent authorities. The bill would take effect the day after its promulgation in the Official Gazette. Its provisions concern the National Charity Lottery, the Electoral Tribunal, the Court of Accounts, the other public authorities listed and people engaged in selling lottery tickets and chances.