In this context, Law 38 of July 31, 2000, establishes essential principles such as legality, purpose, motivation, and due process, which must guide all administrative action.
From an academic perspective, it is pertinent to analyze two legal figures that, although legitimate in their normative design, can generate distortions if not applied in accordance with their purpose: abuse of power and administrative silence.
Abuse of power occurs when an authority exercises a legally attributed competence but directs its action towards a purpose different from that intended by the norm. State action must be coherent not only with the procedure but also with the purposes pursued by the law.
Administrative silence, on the other hand, constitutes a mechanism provided to protect the individual against the inactivity of the Administration. The Administration has the duty to issue an express response within the established deadlines, in accordance with the principles of good administration and legal certainty.
In academic and institutional analysis, situations have been identified in which certain administrative files, even when complete and ready to be resolved, do not receive a response within the legal deadline. In other words, there may be formally correct decisions that, however, do not respond to the public interest that justifies the power exercised.
This concept allows us to understand that administrative legality is not only formal but also material. Administrative doctrine has consistently pointed out that this vice is not identified in the form of the act but in its purpose.
In the field of Administrative Law in Panama, compliance with legality does not depend solely on the existence of norms, but on the proper orientation of public action towards the general interest. The correct application of Law 38 of 2000 requires not only legal knowledge but also institutional integrity and efficient management of procedures.
In this sense, disciplines such as forensic auditing provide relevant tools for analyzing patterns, evaluating consistency, and strengthening transparency in public management.
Ultimately, the objective must be clear: to ensure that administrative action responds in a timely, coherent, and effective manner to the public interest that justifies it.
The author is a forensic auditor, a certified fraud examiner, a former Vice Minister of the Presidency, and a former Secretary General of the Comptroller's Office.
At the same time, other similar-nature procedures are handled with greater speed. These types of scenarios allow us to study how internal file management, including its assignment, prioritization, and follow-up, can affect response times and the legal effects derived from the administrative procedure.
From a technical perspective, these cases should not necessarily be interpreted as individual irregularities, but as opportunities to strengthen internal control mechanisms, the traceability of decisions, and consistency in administrative action.
The value of these examples, in a teaching context, lies in their ability to highlight the importance of aligning administrative practice with the principles that govern it, as well as in promoting an institutional culture based on transparency and accountability.
The study of abuse of power and administrative silence highlights that the main challenge of contemporary Administrative Law is not only normative but also operational.
Its purpose is to prevent the lack of response from causing legal helplessness, allowing, under certain conditions, for automatic legal effects to occur. However, this mechanism must be understood as an exceptional solution and not as a substitute for the obligation to decide.
Abuse of power is one of the most hidden and difficult-to-prove vices in an administrative act. All State bodies must act for the general interest; when the State does not follow the public interest, abuse of power is configured.
