The profound deficiency in knowledge related to internal medicine and critical care led to the appellant’s services being no longer necessary.
On April 29, the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court in case No. 251-2024 confirmed the appealed ruling dated December 21, 2023, issued by the Court of Appeals of Santiago that rejected the appeal for protection filed.
It should be kept in mind that a surgeon filed a protection appeal against the Metropolitan Hospital of Santiago, denouncing as an illegal and arbitrary act the early termination of her contract as of September 4, 2023, through Exempt Resolution No. 1038 of August 4 of 2023, with violation of the guarantees enshrined in paragraphs 2, 3 and 24 of article 19 of the Political Constitution of the Republic.
She maintained that she was hired by the Eastern Metropolitan Health Service to perform professional functions, on a contract basis, at the Metropolitan Hospital of Santiago starting January 1, 2022, she specified that she was contracted until December 31, 2023 with a workload total of 50 hours per week, under two simultaneous contracts. He argued that the alleged official failures attributed to him in the appealed administrative act are not proven and there is no evidence about the veracity or effectiveness of such facts, which, of course, he denies that they are effective. Regarding the constitutional guarantees that it considers infringed, it invokes the provisions of article 19 No. 2 and 3 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, considering that the Director of the Metropolitan Hospital of Santiago has acted as a special commission when ordering the cessation of her services under the formula that they were not necessary, said decision covering up the disciplinary measure of dismissal, without being legally empowered to do so in the way she did and violating due process and the right to defense.
The Metropolitan Hospital requested the rejection of the appeal. With regard to the motivation of the contested act, they maintain that it contains a specific and non-generic basis, which allows it to be affirmed forcefully that the early termination of the plaintiff’s contract is fully founded and justified in the times and forms. which corresponds by law.
The Court of Appeals of Santiago rejected the appeal, for which it took into account article 3 of Law No. 18,834, on Administrative Statute, which establishes that contracted positions – as is the case of the appellant – are characterized by their precariousness, given its essentially transitory nature. Article 10 of the same legal body also provides that said jobs will last, at most, only until December 31 of each year. Without prejudice to this, the essentially temporary and transitory nature of the contracted positions does not mean, however, that they can be terminated at the discretion and in advance by the contracting body, without a plausible and justified cause and reason. On the contrary, article 89 of Law No. 18,834 explicitly recognizes the right to “every official without distinction, to enjoy stability in their employment.
He highlighted that in the present case the duration of the appellant’s contract was extended until December 31, 2023 and as it is possible to note from the tenor of Exempt Resolution No. 1038 of August 4, 2023, that the respondent institution He proceeded to put an early end to it.
Then, as the Supreme Court has pointed out in a ruling of March 31, 2023, in case file No. 26,301-2023, in the exercise of the power to terminate the contract early, the analysis must be more rigorous, since It involves the exercise of an exceptional power, which is why it must always be supported by legal reasons that allow it to be exercised, linked to factual assumptions duly accredited by the authority, which must always be related to objective aspects that determine that the services, from an objective perspective, are not necessary, moving away from purely subjective issues. In this same sense, opinion No. 23,518, of 2016 of the Comptroller General of the Republic, established that the early termination of a contract appointment must be materialized by a well-founded administrative act, corresponding, therefore, that the authority that dictates it express the reasons – that is, the conditions that enable and justify its issuance -, the reasoning and the factual and legal background that serve as support and in accordance with which it has adopted its decision, without a simple formal reference being sufficient , so that just reading it allows us to know what the reasoning was for the adoption of his decision.
Considering that it is possible to conclude that certainly the decision to terminate the appellant’s contract early was based on objective facts; in fact, it is based, in summary, on the appellant’s poor work performance, which, on the other hand, should be kept in mind. that the plaintiff entered the institution on January 1, 2022, to perform duties as a medical professional in the UPC (Critical Patients Unit), where she was evaluated in multiple technical visits by the UPC Service Headquarters, revealing a profound deficiency of knowledge related to internal medicine and critical care, reasons for which the appellant’s services were no longer necessary. Then, since an objectively founded resolution has been issued on the decision to terminate the appellant’s contract early, in light of the duty imposed on the administration by Article 11 of Law 19,880, no illegal or illegal act has been committed. arbitrary, since the reasons that justified such decision were sufficiently explained, which necessarily leads to rejecting the appeal.
He added, on the other hand, that the principle of legitimate confidence does not apply with respect to the appellant, which seeks to protect officials from untimely changes in the Administration’s decisions, providing stability to public servants, given that, as determined in a unifying criterion, the Supreme Court in the ruling identified above, it is only possible to acquire it after having worked in the institution for five years, a period longer than that in which the plaintiff remained linked to the Metropolitan Hospital of Santiago.
When this decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, it confirmed the ruling under the same arguments.
Supreme Court in case role No. 251-2024
Court of Appeals of Santiago Role N° 14,992-2023
