agotamiento_facultativoCPCA art. 31Treating exhaustion as mandatory by default when it's optional.
cr-nammu.ai — grounding & sourcing
What grounds our Costa Rican administrative-litigation AI
Contencioso-administrativo runs on two codes, not one: CPCA for procedure and LGAP for substance. This page shows exactly which articles of each ground our system, the corrections a line-read against SINALEVI forced along the way, and how to check our work.
Procedure Ley 8508 (CPCA) — in force since 01 Jan 2008Substance Ley 6227 (LGAP) — 1978HIGH / MEDIUM — 6 items SINALEVI-PENDING
Quick background
Costa Rica's administrative-litigation system runs on the Código Procesal Contencioso-Administrativo (CPCA), enacted as Ley N.º 8508 and in force since January 1, 2008. It replaced the older Ley Reguladora de la Jurisdicción Contencioso-Administrativa (Ley N.º 3667, 1966) — a narrow, largely annulment-only action against the State — with a broader model of plena jurisdicción: a claimant can seek annulment of an administrative act, but also compel the Administration to act, recognize a right, or claim damages, inside the same process. CPCA art. 198 is itself the derogation clause that closed the Ley 3667 era.
The structural fact that shapes almost everything on this page: this jurisdiction is dual-code. Civil litigation runs on one statute that carries most of its own substantive cross-references. Administrative litigation does not. CPCA governs procedure — how a claim is filed, what the deadlines are, which court hears an appeal. LGAP — the Ley General de la Administración Pública (Ley N.º 6227, 1978) — governs substance: what makes an administrative act valid, what nulidad absoluta actually requires, when the State owes damages. A demanda against a municipality routinely cites both in the same paragraph. Several article numbers repeat across both codes and mean entirely different things depending on which one you're in — collapsing that distinction would be a correctness bug, not a simplification.
This page describes source grounding, not legal advice. It tells you what our system reads for this jurisdiction and how thoroughly each mapping has been checked — including corrections our own earlier draft needed, in a few cases attributing an article to the wrong code entirely. It does not tell you how the law applies to your facts. Several mappings below are explicitly still open, pending a licensed Costa Rican administrative-litigation attorney's sign-off.
Source alignments, by process
Five process types are currently modeled: proceso ordinario (the general track), proceso de lesividad (the Administration suing to undo its own act), proceso sumario (expedited tracks for a closed set of situations), medidas cautelares (a transversal incident attaching to any of the other three), and responsabilidad administrativa (damages against the State). Correction callouts below are surfaced deliberately — evidence the mapping was checked against SINALEVI, not asserted.
Proceso Ordinario Contencioso
Cauce general — CPCA primary, LGAP validity cluster · 8 schema stagesHigh-confidence core2 stages pending
The default administrative-litigation track — annulment, recognition of a right, or a mix of pretensiones, litigated through a full hearing process. Before a claim is even filed, two threshold questions must clear: has the claimant exhausted the administrative channel (agotamiento de la vía administrativa), and is the claim still timely under caducidad.
| Stage | CPCA | LGAP | CP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Análisis previo: agotamiento y caducidad | 31, 32, 39, 40 | — | 173, 182 |
| Presentación de la demanda | 58, 51–54 | 128–131 | — |
| Examen de admisibilidad | 66, 92 | — | — |
| Traslado y contestación (incl. PGR) | 63, 31(3) | — | — |
| Audiencia preliminar | 90–92 | — | — |
| Debate oral y recepción de prueba | SINALEVI-PENDING | — | — |
| Sentencia | SINALEVI-PENDING | — | — |
| Recurso de casación | 135–136, 139 | — | — |
The point visitors most often get backwards: agotamiento is facultativo (optional) by default under CPCA art. 31 — you generally don't need to exhaust internal remedies before suing. CP arts. 173 and 182 carve out the two mandatory exceptions (municipal matters, public contracting). Sue without exhausting, and CPCA art. 31 párr. 3 (with art. 63) gives the jerarca supremo 8 business days to respond. Separately, caducidad on an annulatory claim runs one year (CPCA arts. 39–40) — not to be confused with the four-year prescripción on damages claims (see responsabilidad, below).
Correction — demand requisites
An earlier draft cited CPCA art. 54 for what a demanda must contain. SINALEVI places requisitos de la demanda at art. 58. Tagged HIGH confidence — every demand-stage chunk across all five pipelines depends on this.
CPCA 135≠CPCA 136Two different courts, not one. Art. 135 = Sala Primera's competence. Art. 136 = Tribunal de Casación de lo Contencioso-Administrativo y Civil de Hacienda — a separate tribunal, not a renaming.
Correction — general validity vs. the elements list
LGAP art. 128 states the general validity standard for an act — it is not itself the elements list. The enumerated elementos (competencia, objeto, motivo…) sit at arts. 129–131. Tagged MEDIUM confidence — a lighter fix than the HIGH items above.
Correction — nulidad absoluta is not art. 140
LGAP art. 140 governs eficacia (when an act takes effect) — a different topic. Nulidad absoluta is art. 166; nulidad relativa is art. 167, alongside general vicios at art. 158. HIGH confidence; also encoded as a guardrail axis below.
Related law: LGAP arts. 128–131 and 166–167 ground most annulment pretensiones; LGAP art. 11 (principio de legalidad) and art. 136 (motivación) are the general backdrop. Note — LGAP 136 (motivación) and CPCA 136 (Tribunal Casación, above) are the same number in different codes with unrelated meanings.
Proceso de Lesividad
CPCA art. 34 + LGAP arts. 173/183 · 5 schema stagesHigh-confidence core2 stages pending
The mechanism the Administration itself must use to undo its own act that already granted rights to someone (an acto declarativo de derechos) — it cannot simply revoke that act on its own authority. LGAP art. 183 makes such acts irrevocable outside a judicial lesividad process; art. 173 provides a narrow autotutela exception. Roles invert here: la Administración is the actora; the administrado beneficiado is the demandado.
| Stage | CPCA | LGAP |
|---|---|---|
| Declaratoria administrativa interna de lesividad | 34, 39 inc. e | 173, 183 |
| Presentación de la demanda de lesividad | 34, 58 | 128–131, 183 |
| Traslado de la demanda de lesividad | 63 | — |
| Defensa del administrado beneficiado | SINALEVI-PENDING | — |
| Sentencia y efectos de la anulación | SINALEVI-PENDING | — |
Demand requisites run through the same CPCA art. 58 as ordinario — lesividad has no separate demand-requisites article of its own.
Correction — a missing stage and a missing ground
The rev01 line-read added two things an earlier draft lacked: a Traslado de la demanda de lesividad stage grounded in CPCA art. 63, and LGAP art. 130 — objeto del acto — as an explicit lesividad ground alongside arts. 128, 129, 131. Before the fix, only motivo and competencia were implicitly checked; a defective objeto (whether the act's content was licit and possible) is an independent, equally valid ground.
Related law: the same LGAP validity cluster (arts. 128–131) as ordinario — but the reason it's invoked flips: the Administration is arguing its own past act was invalid, not defending against one.
Proceso Sumario Contencioso
CPCA vías abreviadas · 4 schema stages · legacy schema slugHigh-confidence core2 items pending
Despite the name's resemblance to civil's proceso sumario, this is not a general 'shorter ordinario.' It's a trámite preferente (expedited handling) available only for a closed set of statutory situations, plus a narrow carve-out for sumario/civil-de-Hacienda matters.
| Stage | CPCA | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Identificación del supuesto habilitante | 32, 42(h), 60 | Also art. 1(d) — sumarios/civiles de Hacienda; competencia is SINALEVI-PENDING |
| Presentación de la demanda | 58, 60 | Trámite preferente shortens plazos |
| Audiencia única (trámite preferente) | 60, 90 | Contestación can be as short as 5 days (art. 60) |
| Sentencia | SINALEVI-PENDING | Recursos route through arts. 135–136 |
| Supuesto taxativo | CPCA art. |
|---|---|
| Trámite preferente | 60 |
| Silencio administrativo | 32 |
| Vía de hecho | 42(h) |
| Sumario / civil de Hacienda | 1(d) |
Correction — the single largest fix in this mapping
An earlier draft cited CPCA art. 140 as establishing proceso sumario. It does not — art. 140 governs rechazo de plano de casación, a dismissal mechanism inside an entirely different process. Sumario's real anchors are arts. 1(d), 32, 42(h), and 60. HIGH confidence; the ingestor now strips art. 140 from every sumario-tagged chunk to keep the old mapping from resurfacing.
Open item
Whether the sumario/civil-de-Hacienda carve-out (art. 1(d)) is heard by the ordinary civil-de-Hacienda juzgado or by the TCA is flagged SINALEVI-PENDING — not yet resolved.
Medidas Cautelares Contencioso
CPCA arts. 19–28 · transversal incident · 4 schema stagesHigh-confidence core1 item pending
Not a standalone lawsuit — an incident that can attach to ordinario, lesividad, or sumario, requestable before a demand is filed, while a case is pending, or during execution (CPCA art. 19 sets that scope). Flagged transversal in the schema (
flags.aplica_a) because it doesn't belong to any single process.| Stage | CPCA | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Solicitud de la medida cautelar | 19, 20, 21, 22 | Medidas can be positivas/innovativas, not just suspensivas |
| Audiencia (salvo urgencia) | 24, 25 | Inaudita altera pars is art. 25, not 26 |
| Resolución de la medida | 19, 26(2), 28 | Pre-procesal medida requires the main demand within 15 days |
| Modificación o levantamiento | SINALEVI-PENDING | — |
CPCA 20≠CPCA 21Types vs. standard. Art. 20 lists the types of medida (suspensiva, innovativa/positiva, dar/hacer/no hacer). Art. 21 is procedencia — the daño grave + pretensión seria test to get one granted at all.
CPCA 25≠CPCA 26Inaudita altera pars vs. pre-procesal measure. Art. 25 = granting relief without first hearing the other side (extreme urgency). Art. 26 = a pre-procesal measure whose inciso 2 requires filing the actual demand within 15 days or it lapses.
Both corrections above are tagged HIGH confidence and drive automated plazo_alerts. A smaller, self-caught error worth noting for transparency: an earlier version of the underlying spec itself listed the ámbito-del-incidente range as "19–18" — an inverted, nonsensical range, caught before it reached production metadata. The schema uses art. 19 alone.
Responsabilidad Administrativa
LGAP arts. 190, 194, 198 + CPCA arts. 42–43, 58 · pretensión resarcitoria · 4 stagesThe damages track — a claim that the State (or a public official) caused harm and owes compensation. Not a standalone lawsuit type: most often litigated as a pretensión accumulated inside an ordinario claim (CPCA art. 43 permits acumulación; art. 42 inc. j is the pretensión de indemnización itself).
| Stage | CPCA | LGAP |
|---|---|---|
| Identificación del daño y nexo causal | 58 | 190, 194 |
| Cuantificación del daño y prueba | 42 | 190 |
| Reclamo previo / demanda judicial | 42, 58 | 190, 198 |
| Prueba del daño en debate y sentencia | 58 | 190 |
| Topic | Reference | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pretensión de daños | CPCA 42(j) | Acumulable with pretensión anulatoria under art. 43 |
| Responsabilidad objetiva por actividad ilícita | LGAP 190 | Doctrinal anchor — HIGH confidence |
| Prescripción resarcitoria | LGAP 198 | 4 years — separate from the 1-year caducidad (CPCA 39–40) |
| Repetición contra el funcionario | LGAP 201 | State vs. official, where dolo or culpa grave is shown |
| Nexo causal en la demanda | CPCA 58 | Added rev01 (GAP-6) — HIGH confidence |
CPCA 198≠LGAP 198This branch's single most important disambiguation. CPCA 198 is the derogation clause that repealed Ley 3667 in 2008 — a historical provision, irrelevant to a live claim. LGAP 198 is the four-year prescripción resarcitoria — the actual limitations period on a damages claim. Citing "art. 198" without naming the code changes the sentence's meaning entirely.
Unlike the other four pipelines, responsabilidad has no dedicated SINALEVI-PENDING line of its own — but when a damages claim is acumulada with an ordinario annulatoria (the common case), it inherits ordinario's pending debate-oral and sentencia gaps.
How the five pipelines connect
- →Medidas cautelares attaches to ordinario, lesividad, and sumario alike — it is not a demand pipeline in its own right.
- →Responsabilidad is acumulable with ordinario under CPCA art. 43, using the pretensión at art. 42 inc. j.
- →Sumario and lesividad share the caducidad block (art. 39) and the demand-requisites article (art. 58) with ordinario — none of the five has its own separate demand-requisites provision.
- →A claim that starts as sumario but falls outside the taxative catalog, or whose Hacienda-competence question resolves against TCA jurisdiction, can end up governed by ordinario rules instead.
Built-in confusion checks: the guardrail axes
Costa Rican administrative litigation has a known set of places where even competent practitioners mix things up — usually because two provisions share a number, or a 'well-known' general rule has a narrow exception. The underlying spec encodes that risk as ten machine-readable guardrail axes, attached to statutory chunks and used to anchor the system prompt for this jurisdiction. Civil law didn't need this in the same way — it exists here specifically because the dual-code structure and a history of renumbering create exactly this collision risk.
cp_173_182_mandatory_exceptionCP arts. 173, 182Missing the two exceptions (municipal, contracting) where exhaustion is mandatory.
caducidad_vs_prescripcionCPCA 39–40; LGAP 198Conflating the 1-year caducidad on the right to sue with the 4-year prescripción on damages.
cpca_198_vs_lgap_198CPCA 198; LGAP 198Citing "art. 198" without naming the code — derogation clause vs. damages prescription.
prescripcion_resarcitoria_lgapLGAP art. 198Scoping the 4-year clock to damages claims specifically.
nulidad_absoluta_lgap_166LGAP art. 166Citing LGAP 140 (eficacia) when the point is actually nulidad absoluta.
nulidad_relativa_lgap_167LGAP art. 167Keeping relative nullity distinct from the absolute-nullity article above.
casacion_135_vs_136CPCA 135–136Routing casación to Sala Primera when it belongs to Tribunal Casación CCA-CH, or vice versa.
jurisdiction_contencioso_vs_constitucionalCP art. 49Confusing TCA's jurisdiction with Sala Constitucional's amparo — a separate corpus, not treated as primary here.
no_autonomous_filingStructural ruleNo filing before TCA or PGR is generated without a human in the loop.
How to verify this yourself
We'd rather an expert reader check our work than take it on faith. Everything above traces to the Sistema Nacional de Legislación Vigente (SINALEVI), published through Costa Rica's Procuraduría General de la República at pgrweb.go.cr/scij.
- CPCA (Ley 8508): SCIJ
nValor2=57436— consolidated version stamped "8 de 8 del 06/05/2025." - LGAP (Ley 6227): SCIJ
nValor2=13231— consolidated version stamped "21 de 21 del 23/03/2026."
A second SCIJ-id correction, separate from the article fixes above
An earlier draft of the normativa registry pointed the LGAP entry at nValor2=10637. A live SCIJ fetch against that id returns Decreto Ejecutivo N.º 17432 (1987) — an unrelated executive decree, not the consolidated LGAP. The corrected id, 13231, is the same consolidated ficha already used for the notarial branch's LGAP references.
Live normativa ingest for this jurisdiction
| Law | Chunks | SINALEVI version |
|---|---|---|
| CPCA (8508) | 220 | 8 de 8 del 06/05/2025 |
| LGAP (6227) | 368 | 21 de 21 del 23/03/2026 |
| CP (Constitución, 871) | 207 | 28 de 28 del 02/09/2025 |
| Ley 8968 (protección de datos) | 37 | 1 de 1 del 07/07/2011 |
| Ley 7333 (reforma LOPJ) | 9 | 2 de 2 del 05/05/1993 |
| Ley 7494 (contratación admin., slices) | 5 | 3 de 3 del 24/03/2021 |
Jurisprudence ingest (Sala Primera, Tribunal Casación CCA-CH, TCA) is defined but not yet live — those harvest jobs remain disabled pending manual export review.
What "verified" means here — and why it's not the same vocabulary as our civil-law page
Our civil-law grounding page uses a SINALEVI_VERIFIED tier as an affirmative "checked and done" state. This branch's schema, as of its 2026-06-28 rev01 fix pass, does not use that label — its vocabulary is:
HIGH
Independently confirmed against SINALEVI — the collision-prone articles flagged throughout this page (CPCA 58, 20/21, 25/26; LGAP 166; CPCA 135/136; the 198 pair).
MEDIUM
Mapped and article-checked, but not independently spot-confirmed at HIGH's level of scrutiny.
SINALEVI-PENDING
Not yet fully resolved against the consolidated text. Rev01 (GAP-2) retired the earlier "LOW" label for this one — pending means active follow-up, not just low confidence.
ATTORNEY_VERIFIED
Reviewed and signed off by a licensed Costa Rican administrative-litigation attorney for user-facing citation — not yet reached here.
Where the civil page's default "not yet attorney-verified" state is a completed SINALEVI check, this branch's default state for its open items is SINALEVI-PENDING — the line-read itself isn't finished, not merely unsigned. Six items currently carry that tag:
- 01Debate oral — the specific articles governing the hearing/trial title of the CPCA
- 02Plazo para dictar sentencia in the TCA
- 03Ejecución de sentencias contra la Administración — how a judgment against the State gets enforced
- 04Competencia for procesos sumarios/civiles de Hacienda (CPCA art. 1(d)) — juzgado vs. TCA
- 05Modificación o levantamiento de medidas cautelares — the specific articles for changing or lifting a granted measure
- 06Defensa del administrado en lesividad, and the sentencia and effects of anulación in that process
Current status
None of the five pipelines on this page is currently ATTORNEY_VERIFIED. That sign-off is a deliberate, separate gate before any of this is presented as a citable legal conclusion for your specific matter.
None of the five pipelines on this page is currently ATTORNEY_VERIFIED. That sign-off is a deliberate, separate gate before any of this is presented as a citable legal conclusion for your specific matter. If you're a practicing administrative-litigation attorney and something above doesn't match your own reading of the consolidated CPCA or LGAP text, we want to hear about it.
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