{ "id": "nexus-sen-1-0006-990194", "citation": "Res. 00863-2020 Sala Tercera de la Corte", "section": "nexus_decisions", "doc_type": "court_decision", "title_es": "Incumplimiento de orden sanitaria: contravención versus desobediencia", "title_en": "Breach of health order: contravention vs. disobedience", "summary_es": "La Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, conociendo un recurso de casación del Ministerio Público, ratifica la recalificación de los hechos hecha por el Tribunal de Apelación, que consideró que el incumplimiento de una orden sanitaria emitida por el Ministerio de Salud no constituye el delito de desobediencia a la autoridad previsto en el artículo 314 del Código Penal, sino la contravención específica del artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud. La Sala fundamenta su decisión en el concurso aparente de normas resuelto por el principio de especialidad: la Ley General de Salud es una normativa especial que protege la salud pública, y su artículo 378 regula de manera más detallada y específica la omisión de órdenes sanitarias, por lo que desplaza al tipo penal genérico de desobediencia. La frase \"si el hecho no constituye delito\" contenida en el artículo 378 se interpreta de forma lógico-sistemática: se refiere a figuras delictivas que específicamente sancionen el incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias (como el artículo 277 del Código Penal), no a cualquier ilícito. Al no ser aplicable el delito de desobediencia y al haberse recalificado a la contravención, se declaró la prescripción de la acción penal y la absolución del imputado. La Sala confirma la vigencia de esta interpretación, señalando que la aplicación literal del Ministerio Público convertiría la contravención en letra muerta.", "summary_en": "The Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court upheld an appellate court's reclassification of conduct from the crime of disobedience of authority (Article 314 of the Penal Code) to the health contravention of violating a sanitary order (Article 378 of the General Health Law). Applying the principle of specialty in apparent concurrence of norms, the Chamber held that the General Health Law is a special statute protecting public health, and its Article 378 specifically addresses the breach of health orders, thereby displacing the general criminal provision. The clause \"if the act does not constitute a crime\" in Article 378 must be interpreted systematically, not literally; it refers only to offenses that specifically criminalize the violation of health orders (e.g., Article 277 of the Penal Code), not any unrelated crime like disobedience. Consequently, the reclassification stood, and since the prosecution for the contravention was already time-barred, the acquittal was confirmed, keeping the special law's sanctioning scheme operative.", "court_or_agency": "Sala Tercera de la Corte", "date": "17/07/2020", "year": "2020", "topic_ids": [ "_off-topic" ], "primary_topic_id": "_off-topic", "es_concept_hints": [ "concurso aparente de normas", "principio de especialidad", "orden sanitaria", "contravención", "desobediencia a la autoridad", "interpretación lógico sistemática", "Ley General de Salud", "Código Penal" ], "article_citations": [], "keywords_es": [ "concurso aparente de normas", "principio de especialidad", "desobediencia a la autoridad", "orden sanitaria", "Ley General de Salud", "Código Penal", "contravención", "salud pública", "recalificación", "prescripción", "Sala Tercera", "casación penal", "incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias" ], "keywords_en": [ "apparent concurrence of norms", "principle of specialty", "disobedience to authority", "health order", "General Health Law", "Penal Code", "contravention", "public health", "reclassification", "statute of limitations", "Criminal Cassation Chamber", "breach of health orders" ], "excerpt_es": "Conforme a este parámetro de interpretación lógico sistemático, esta Sala estima que el numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud, cuando señala que será aplicable la contravención “…si el hecho no constituye delito”, se refiere a la posibilidad de que se encuentre regulado dentro del ordenamiento jurídico figuras penales en las cuales se incorpore el incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias como un elemento normativo del tipo penal, sea que se sancione como delito este tipo de acciones de manera más específica, o que el incumplimiento de una orden sanitaria se penalice por encontrarse asociado a otras acciones que también configuren delito; mas no podría interpretarse que dicho precepto haga remisión a cualquier clase de ilícito, como lo supone la representación fiscal.\n\nBajo las anteriores consideraciones, conforme con una interpretación lógico sistemática y en aplicación del principio de especialidad que priva, esta Sala concluye que la conducta atribuida al endilgado encuadra efectivamente en la contravención contemplada en el ordinal 378 de la Ley General de Salud, en virtud de que los hechos probados le atribuyen al imputado la omisión en el cumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias emitidas por las autoridades del Ministerio de Salud, y en consecuencia, no resulta aplicable el delito de desobediencia, pues dicha figura delictiva protege un bien jurídico distinto, y sanciona un incumplimiento general de actos emitidos por funcionarios públicos, mas no la transgresión de órdenes en materia de salud, conforme lo exige la normativa especial.", "excerpt_en": "In accordance with this logical-systematic interpretation criterion, this Chamber considers that Article 378 of the General Health Law, when it states that the contravention shall apply \"…if the act does not constitute a crime\", refers to the possibility that the legal system contains criminal provisions incorporating the breach of health orders as a normative element of the offense, meaning that such actions are punished as a crime in a more specific manner, or that the breach of a health order is penalized because it is associated with other actions that also constitute a crime; it cannot be interpreted that this provision refers to any type of offense, as the prosecution assumes.\n\nUnder the foregoing considerations, through a logical-systematic interpretation and applying the prevailing principle of specialty, this Chamber concludes that the conduct attributed to the defendant indeed falls within the contravention provided for in Article 378 of the General Health Law, given that the proven facts attribute to the accused the omission to comply with health orders issued by the Ministry of Health authorities; consequently, the crime of disobedience is not applicable, as that criminal offense protects a different legal interest and punishes a general breach of acts issued by public officials, but not the violation of orders in health matters, as required by the special regulation.", "outcome": { "label_en": "Denied", "label_es": "Sin lugar", "summary_en": "The Chamber denied the prosecutor's cassation appeal and upheld the reclassification to a contravention and the acquittal due to the statute of limitations.", "summary_es": "La Sala declaró sin lugar el recurso de casación del Ministerio Público y confirmó la recalificación a contravención y la absolución por prescripción." }, "pull_quotes": [ { "context": "Considerando III", "quote_en": "Article 378 of the General Health Law, when it states that the contravention shall apply '…if the act does not constitute a crime', refers to the possibility that the legal system contains criminal provisions incorporating the breach of health orders as a normative element of the offense, meaning that such actions are punished as a crime in a more specific manner...", "quote_es": "el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud, cuando señala que será aplicable la contravención “…si el hecho no constituye delito”, se refiere a la posibilidad de que se encuentre regulado dentro del ordenamiento jurídico figuras penales en las cuales se incorpore el incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias como un elemento normativo del tipo penal, sea que se sancione como delito este tipo de acciones de manera más específica..." }, { "context": "Considerando III", "quote_en": "For the Criminal Cassation Chamber, it is impossible to interpret Article 378 of the General Health Law and the reference to subsidiarity it contains from a different perspective, because it would not only disregard the specialty of the matter contained in the General Health Law—as a normative body that systematically regulates public health issues—but would also render the contravention a dead letter.", "quote_es": "Para la Sala de Casación Penal no es posible interpretar el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud y la remisión de subsidiariedad que dicho tipo penal contempla bajo una óptica distinta, porque no sólo entrañaría un desconocimiento de la especialidad de la materia contemplada en la Ley General de Salud, como un cuerpo normativo que regula de forma sistemática los temas de salud pública, sino que además, implicaría que dicha contravención se convirtiera en letra muerta." }, { "context": "Considerando III (citando Artículo 7 Ley General de Salud)", "quote_en": "Everything regulated in this law must have prevailing application due to its special nature, and that includes the sanctions it provides.", "quote_es": "todo lo regulado en esta ley debe tener aplicación prevalente por su carácter especial, y eso incluye las sanciones que la misma contempla." } ], "cites": [ { "id": "norm-5027", "citation": "Ley 4573", "title_en": "Penal Code — Law 4573", "title_es": "Código Penal — Ley 4573", "doc_type": "law", "date": "04/05/1970", "year": "1970" }, { "id": "norm-6581", "citation": "Ley 5395", "title_en": "General Health Law", "title_es": "Ley General de Salud", "doc_type": "law", "date": "30/10/1973", "year": "1973" } ], "cited_by": [ { "id": "nexus-sen-1-0006-956399", "citation": "Res. 01550-2019 Sala Tercera de la Corte", "title_en": "Inapplicability of the crime of disobedience against the health contravention of Article 378 of the General Health Law", "title_es": "Inaplicabilidad del delito de desobediencia frente a la contravención sanitaria del artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud", "doc_type": "court_decision", "date": "29/11/2019", "year": "2019" }, { "id": "norm-5027", "citation": "Ley 4573", "title_en": "Penal Code — Law 4573", "title_es": "Código Penal — Ley 4573", "doc_type": "law", "date": "04/05/1970", "year": "1970" }, { "id": "norm-6581", "citation": "Ley 5395", "title_en": "General Health Law", "title_es": "Ley General de Salud", "doc_type": "law", "date": "30/10/1973", "year": "1973" } ], "references": { "internal": [], "external": [ { "ref_id": "nexus-sen-1-0034-1011520", "url": "", "kind": "related_voto", "label": "", "nexus_id": "sen-1-0034-1011520" }, { "ref_id": "nexus-sen-1-0034-1015812", "url": "", "kind": "related_voto", "label": "", "nexus_id": "sen-1-0034-1015812" } ] }, "source_url": "https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0006-990194", "tier": 2, "is_environmental": false, "_editorial_citation_count": 0, "regulations_by_article": null, "amendments_by_article": null, "dictamen_by_article": null, "concordancias_by_article": null, "afectaciones_by_article": null, "resoluciones_by_article": null, "cited_by_votos": [], "cited_norms": [], "cited_norms_inverted": [ { "doc_id": "norm-5027", "norm_num": "4573", "norm_name": "Código Penal — Ley 4573", "tipo_norma": "Ley", "norm_fecha": "04/05/1970" }, { "doc_id": "norm-6581", "norm_num": "5395", "norm_name": "Ley General de Salud", "tipo_norma": "Ley", "norm_fecha": "30/10/1973" } ], "sentencias_relacionadas": [ "sen-1-0034-1011520", "sen-1-0034-1015812" ], "temas_y_subtemas": [], "cascade_only": false, "amendment_count": 0, "body_es_text": "*150001520472PE*\n\nExp: 15-000152-0472-PE \n\nRes: 2020-00863\n\nSALA DE CASACIÓN PENAL. San José, a las once horas y cuarenta y nueve minutos del diecisiete de julio de dos mil veinte.\n\n Recurso de Casación, interpuesto en la presente causa seguida contra José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez, [...] ; por el delito de desobediencia a la autoridad, cometido en perjuicio de La Autoridad Pública. Intervienen en la decisión del recurso, los Magistrados y Magistradas Patricia Solano Castro, Jesús Alberto Ramírez Quirós, Álvaro Burgos Mata, Gerardo Rubén Alfaro Vargas y Sandra Eugenia Zúñiga Morales. También en esta instancia, la fiscala Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, en su condición de representante del Ministerio Público. \n\nResultando: \n\n 1. Mediante sentencia N° 2019-1928 , dictada a las trece horas y veinte minutos del veintiocho de octubre de dos mil diecinueve, el Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal del Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José, resolvió: “POR TANTO: Por razones diversas a las invocadas, se declara con lugar el recurso de apelación que formuló la licenciada Selenia Arce Prendas, defensora pública del encartado, y se recalifica la conducta a la contravención del numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud. Se declara prescrita la causa y se dispone absolver de toda pena y responsabilidad al acusado José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez. NOTIFÍQUESE.- Raúl Madrigal Lizano Gustavo Gillen Bermudez Gustavo Rojas Gutiérrez Jueces de Apelación de Sentencia Penal” (sic).\n\n 2. Contra el anterior pronunciamiento, la fiscala Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, en su condición de representante del Ministerio Público, interpuso recurso de casación.\n\n 3. Verificada la deliberación respectiva, la Sala entró a conocer del recurso.\n\n 4. En los procedimientos se han observado las prescripciones legales pertinentes. \n\nInforma el Magistrado Ramírez Quirós; y,\n\nConsiderando:\n\n I.- Mediante resolución número 2020-0382, de las 11:13 horas, del 3 de abril de 2020, esta Sala admitió el único motivo del recurso de casación interpuesto por la Licenciada Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, como representante del Ministerio Público, quien impugnó la sentencia número 2019-1928, de las 13:20 horas, del 28 de octubre de 2019, dictada por el Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal del Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José, resolución que declaró con lugar el recurso de apelación planteado a favor del imputado y recalificó los hechos demostrados a la contravención prevista en el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud, y al no estar vigente la acción penal conforme con dicha recalificación, se declaró prescrita, y absolvió al encausado José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez de toda pena y responsabilidad.\n\n II.- Único Motivo. Inobservancia de la ley sustantiva, artículos 23 y 314 del Código Penal y errónea aplicación de la contravención prevista en el ordinal 378 de la Ley General de Salud. La Fiscala aduce la inobservancia de lo dispuesto en los artículos 23 y 314 del Código Penal, así como la errónea aplicación de la contravención dispuesta en el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud. Expone que, según los eventos acreditados, el encartado incumplió una orden sanitaria que le había sido notificada personalmente y en la cual se le previno, expresamente, que en caso de incumplir con la misma se le podría abrir causa por el delito de desobediencia regulado en el artículo 314 del Código Penal. Indica la recurrente que tales hechos fueron recalificados por el Tribunal de Apelación al considerar que en la especie existía un concurso aparente de normas entre el delito de desobediencia y la contravención establecida en la Ley General de Salud, y que ésta última norma desplazaba al delito de desobediencia en virtud del principio de especialidad. De seguido, los jueces decretaron la prescripción de la conducta recalificada (contravención) así como la absolutoria del acusado. La representante fiscal reprocha la decisión de los jueces de alzada, pues considera que incurrieron en un yerro, porque aún cuando la Ley General de Salud es una regulación especial, el mencionado artículo 378 dispone de forma expresa que, en caso de incumplimiento de una orden o medida dictada por las autoridades de salud, será constitutivo de la contravención, siempre y cuando el hecho no constituya delito. Por consiguiente, estima que contrario a lo sostenido por el Tribunal de Apelación, por disposición expresa de la propia Ley General de Salud no rige el principio de especialidad, sino que priva la aplicación del tipo penal de desobediencia. Como agravio señala que la errónea calificación efectuada incidió en el resultado de la sentencia, en detrimento de la pretensión punitiva del ente fiscal, pues impidió el establecimiento de una pena acorde con el tipo penal descrito y demostrado en el contradictorio.\n\n III.- Se declara sin lugar el motivo planteado. Resulta necesario, a efectos de determinar cuál es la normativa sustantiva aplicable al caso concreto, tomar como punto de partida el cuadro fáctico que se tuvo por acreditado en la sentencia condenatoria, el cual fue descrito de la siguiente forma: “1.- El acusado JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ, se dedica a la venta ambulante de alimentos en la vía pública. 2. - El veintiséis de agosto del año dos mil catorce, el funcionario del Ministerio de Salud de Matina, Johan Castro Mayorga, le notificó personalmente al acusado JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ la Orden Sanitaria número HC-ARS-M-3205-2014, mediante la cual se le ordenó eliminar la venta ambulante de alimentos en la vía pública, teniéndose que en esa notificación personal, se le previno además, que en caso de incumplir la orden sanitaria, se le podría iniciar causa por el delito de Desobediencia a la Autoridad, de conformidad con lo establecido en el numeral 314 del Código Penal. 3.- El acusado JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ desobedeció la orden sanitaria en razón de que en Acta de Inspección número HC-ARS-M-4474-2014 realizada en fecha 20 de noviembre del 2014, ya que se determinó que el acusado continuaba realizando la actividad de venta de alimentos en la vía pública, propiamente en los alrededores de la Escuela de la localidad de Bataan”. (cfr. folio 99 expediente digital). Luego del contradictorio se tuvo por demostrado por parte del Tribunal de Sentencia, que el imputado, pese a ser notificado de forma personal por la autoridad de salud competente de la orden sanitaria que le compelía a eliminar por completo la venta ambulante de alimentos en vía pública ante el riesgo para la salud de la comunidad, y bajo el apercibimiento expreso de que en caso de incumplimiento incurriría en el delito de desobediencia, hizo caso omiso de la misma, de modo que con posterioridad los funcionarios del Ministerio de Salud constataron que el imputado se mantuvo en dicha actividad comercial. De esta manera, el Tribunal de Juicio tuvo por configurado el delito de desobediencia, regulado en el numeral 314 del Código Penal, que en lo concerniente estipula: “Se impondrá prisión de seis meses a tres años, a quien no cumpla o no haga cumplir, en todos sus extremos, la orden impartida por un órgano jurisdiccional o por un funcionario público en el ejercicio de sus funciones, siempre que se haya comunicado personalmente, salvo si se trata de la propia detención”. Por su parte, el Tribunal de Apelación estimó que los hechos demostrados en el contradictorio en realidad constituían la contravención regulada en la Ley General de Salud, en el Título I “De las sanciones” en el capítulo II “De las contravenciones contra la salud”, propiamente en el artículo 378, que expresamente sanciona: “ El omiso en el cumplimiento de las órdenes o medidas especiales o generales dictadas por las autoridades de salud, sufrirá la pena de cinco a treinta días multa, si el hecho no constituye delito”. Los jueces de alzada tomaron dicha determinación y recalificaron los hechos probados, pues estimaron que en la especie se verificaba un concurso aparente entre ambas normas, de modo que resolvió la controversia atendiendo a un criterio de especialidad. Así, en el fallo impugnado se expuso: “Una vez determinada la situación de hecho, esta cámara considera que ella configura la contravención que menciona el numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud. Sobre el particular, en los votos 2019-101, de las 09:25 horas del 25 de enero de 2019 y 2019-136, de las 10:35 horas del 30 de enero de 2019, emitidos por esta cámara, con distinga integración, en el segundo de ellos, se refirió lo siguiente: \"(a) Potestades de la autoridad administrativa: En los artículos 340 y 341 de la Ley General de Salud se establecen las facultades de la autoridad sanitaria para la emisión de órdenes cuyo fin sea prevenir o evitar riesgos o daños, a la salud. Adicionalmente, el artículo 349 de la ley en comentario, establece: \"Tendrán carácter de autoridad de salud los funcionarios del Ministerio que desempeñen cargos de inspección que hayan sido especialmente comisionados para la comprobación de infracciones a esta ley o a sus reglamentos, tendrán fe pública en cuanto a las denuncias que se formulen contra personas físicas o jurídicas por hechos o actos que involucren infracción a tales disposiciones o que constituyen delito. Tendrán este mismo carácter los Inspectores de Cuarentena\". Del anterior articulado se deriva con total claridad que los inspectores de salud, que han sido comisionados para la comprobación de infracciones a las normas sanitarias, tienen carácter de autoridad pública y en tal condición están legitimados para emitir órdenes generales o especiales, para prevenir o evitar un daño en la salud de las personas. De igual manera, el artículo 356 de la Ley en comentario, establece las acciones que puede ejecutar u ordenar la autoridad de salud, al momento de emitir una orden sanitaria. Asimismo, los artículos del 357 al 365 de dicha ley especial, detallan el alcance y las acciones que puede ejecutar u ordenar una autoridad de salud, cuando emite una orden de este tipo. De este último grupo de normas se tiene que, en efecto, la autoridad sanitaria está facultada para ordenar la clausura de establecimientos, cancelación de permisos, la orden de paralización, destrucción o ejecución de obras (ver en este sentido, articulo 356 de la Ley General de Salud). (b)Inaplicación del artículo 314 del Código Penal En sentencia, el juez de juicio estimó que el incumplimiento a la orden sanitaria era constitutivo del delito de desobediencia a la autoridad contemplado en el artículo 314 del Código Penal sin realizar un análisis exhaustivo y completo de la normativa en la materia. El artículo 314 del Código Penal establece: \"Se impondrá prisión de seis meses a tres años, a quien no cumpla o no haga cumplir en todos sus extremos, la orden impartida por un árgano jurisdiccional o por un funcionario público en el ejercicio de sus funciones, siempre que se haya comunicado personalmente, salvo si se trata de la propia detención\". Por su parte, el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud establece: \"el omiso en el cumplimiento de las órdenes o medidas especiales o generales dictadas por las autoridades de salud, sufrirá la pena de cinco a treinta días multa, si el hecho no constituye delito”. Ante ello, el incumplimiento de una orden sanitaria no podría configurar el delito de desobediencia a la autoridad ya que la Ley General de Salud en su artículo 321 contempla una sanción específica, la cual desplaza el tipo penal. En tratándose del delito contenido en el artículo 314 del Código Penal y la contravención establecida en el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud, nos encontramos ante un concurso aparente de normas, conforme al artículo 23 del Código Penal, que señala: “Cuando una misma conducta esté descrita en varias disposiciones legales que se excluyan entre sí, sólo se aplicará una de ellas, así: la norma especial prevalece sobre la general, la que contiene íntegramente a otro se prefiere a ésta y aquella que la ley no haya subordinado expresa o tácitamente a otra, se aplica en vez de la accesoria\". A efecto de determinar cuál de las normas es aplicable, debemos regimos por los principios y reglas del citado concurso. Tal y como puede colegirse de ambas normas, la acción impuesta se refiere al hecho de incumplir la orden emanada por un funcionario público, sin embargo, la contravención contiene varios elementos específicos que la diferencian del delito, así: i. El artículo 378 de la Ley General de salud describe el incumplimiento de una orden especial o general dictada por una autoridad de salud, es decir, este tipo de órdenes no lo puede emitir cualquier funcionario público, sino sólo aquellos que estén revestidos de carácter de autoridad de salud. ii. La conducta contenida en el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud dirige la acción prohibida hacia aquellas personas a las que se les ha impartido una orden sanitaria, es decir, no es cualquier tipo de orden emanada por un funcionario público, sino es una orden que lo que busca es prevenir o evitar daños en la salud de las personas o en el ambiente. iii. En virtud del principio de especialidad, lo correcto es la aplicación de la contravención contenida en la ley especial y no el delito regulado en la norma general, al privar la regla de aplicación de lo especifico sobre lo general. iv. La Ley General de Salud es norma especial y, en ese tanto, priva sobre el Código Penal, por cuanto, si bien ambas normas protegen el mismo bien jurídico, salud pública, priva la segunda en tanto, las órdenes sanitarias emitidas por los inspectores de salud -conforme a la Ley General de Salud- son realizadas en el marco de sus competencias y cuya finalidad es prevenir o evitar un daño en la salud de las personas o en el medio ambiente. Baste acá insistir además que el Código Penal fue publicado en el periódico oficial la Gaceta número 257 del 15 de noviembre de 1970 que entró en vigencia el 15 de noviembre de 1971, mientras que la Ley General de Salud fue publicada en la Gaceta número 222 del 24 de noviembre de 1973 y entró en vigencia hasta el 24 de febrero de 1974, sea es norma posterior creada por el legislador para aplicar en especial a infracciones ocurridas en la vigencia de dicha Ley”. Esta cámara no ignora que la Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, mediante la resolución número 2019-407, de las 14:56 horas del 25 de abril de 2019, admitió el recurso de casación que formuló la representación fiscal en contra de la posición contenida en el primero de los votos mencionados con anterioridad. No obstante, a la fecha de la emisión de esta resolución, dicho recurso no ha sido resuelto, por lo que sus razones aún se encuentran vigentes. De modo que se recalifican los hechos que se tuvieron por acreditados a la contravención regulada en el numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud”. (cfr. folio 19-20 expediente principal ). Luego de un análisis de la postura expuesta en el fallo impugnado y los fundamentos que le apoyan, esta Sala estima que la recalificación verificada en el fallo de segunda instancia es procedente y acorde con un examen adecuado de las reglas que rigen el concurso aparente de normas. En primer lugar, resulta necesario retomar lo que señala el artículo 23 del Código Penal, que en lo concerniente indica: “Cuando una misma conducta esté descrita en varias disposiciones legales que se excluyan entre sí, sólo se aplicará una de ellas, así: la norma especial prevalece sobre la general, la que contiene íntegramente a otra se prefiere a ésta y aquella que la ley no haya subordinado expresa o tácitamente a otra, se aplica en vez de la accesoria”. Dicho precepto legal establece los parámetros bajo los cuales se dilucidan los problemas de aplicación de normas cuando, en apariencia, a una misma conducta sean aplicables distintos tipos penales que se excluyen entre sí, como ocurre en la especie. En la doctrina, se explica la figura del concurso aparente de normas de la siguiente manera: “La llamada “concurrencia aparente” o también “impropia”, contempla los supuestos en que sólo en apariencia dos o más leyes penales concurren, pero que, en realidad, una de las leyes concurrentes excluye a las restantes. En la concurrencia propia las leyes concurrentes no se excluyen, en tanto que en la impropia o aparente, un análisis más cercano revela que una de las leyes excluye la aplicación de las restantes. (…) Suele denominarse al concurso aparente o impropio también “concurrencia de leyes”, expresión que resulta equívoca, pues en verdad ni opera aquí ninguna concurrencia de leyes, sino precisamente una no concurrencia, lo que hace que se le llame también “unidad de ley”, por oposición a la “pluralidad de leyes” que operaría en el concurso ideal. (…) Puig Peña la llama “colisión de normas penales” y la define como “aquella situación de conflicto que surge en la aplicación de leyes penales cuando dos o más normas vigentes al momento de verificarse la calificación de una conducta delictiva, regulan esta misma situación de hecho, de forma tal que la efectividad de ellas excluye necesariamente a la otra”. (Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raúl, Tratado de Derecho Penal, Parte General , Tomo IV, Argentina, Editorial Ediar, 1999, pp. 557-558). Tomando como punto de partida la definición antes mencionada, resulta claro que se requiere de una serie de parámetros o principios para dilucidar cuál es la norma penal que prevalece sobre la otra, en caso de que se presente esa colisión de leyes, al tratarse de preceptos que se excluyen necesariamente. Esta Sala ha desarrollado los principios esenciales para determinar cuál es la norma aplicable, y explica: “Ahora bien, además de la determinación del bien jurídico protegido, dada la complejidad que pueden alcanzar los casos de concurso aparente de normas, para resolverlos la doctrina ha elaborado los principios de especialidad, subsidiariedad y consunción. Existe una relación de especialidad que excluye la aplicación simultánea de dos tipos penales, cuando uno de ellos contiene todos los elementos del otro, pero agrega al menos un elemento adicional especial. Por su parte, la subsidiariedad entre tipos puede ser expresa o tácita, en la primera la propia norma lo establece, mientras que la segunda opción se determina por un análisis teleológico de la relación de ambas normas. Lo determinante de la subsidiariedad es que, ya sea de forma expresa o tácita, existe una relación entre ambos tipos que supone que uno sólo es aplicable si el otro no lo es. Por último, la consunción ocurre cuando un delito se comete antes, durante o después de otro más grave, que desplaza al primero por contener su injusto y culpabilidad”. (Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, resolución 2011-000468, de las 12:09 horas del 09 de abril de 2011). En la especie, el Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia para discernir entre la aplicación del tipo penal de desobediencia y la contravención de incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias de salud contemplada en el numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud, utilizó como base el principio de especialidad, que se concibe como una relación donde existe “…un tipo básico o genérico que contiene determinados requisitos y uno o más tipos específicos o especiales que, construido(s) sobre la base de la misma acción típica que aquél, contiene(n) otro(s) requisito(s) adicional(es) específico(s). estos requerimientos específicos puede referirse a una modalidad especial de la acción, a características del sujeto pasivo o a vínculos con él, a la utilización de determinados medios, a características del objeto, a finalidades específicas, a estados emocionales, al contexto en que se ejecuta la acción o a otras situaciones que especifiquen la conducta, demostrando un fundamento especial de mayor o menor punibilidad respecto de la figura básica y tornándola, por ello, más grave –tipos calificados o agravados- o menos grave –tipos atenuados o privilegiados-. Uno de los tipos, llamado “específico” describe la conducta en forma más detallada que el otro, llamado “genérico”. (Caramuti, Carlos, Concurso de delitos, Editorial Hammurabi, 1ª. Edición, Buenos Aires, 2005. Pág. 198). Haciendo un análisis de la descripción típica como tal, entre el tipo penal de desobediencia (que contempla una acción general de incumplimiento de órdenes emitidas por un funcionario público competente) y la contravención del artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud (que regula en específico el incumplimiento de las órdenes sanitarias emitidas en particular por las autoridades de salud) se constata que entre ambas figuras existe una relación de especialidad, en donde la contravención contemplada en la Ley General de Salud regula de forma más específica la conducta a sancionar, tratándose del incumplimiento puntual de órdenes sanitarias que son directamente emitidas por el Ministerio de Salud, y cuyo objetivo es la protección de la salud, y la prevención específica de riesgos sanitarios para la sociedad -a excepción de la conducta regulada en el tipo penal del artículo 277 del Código Penal-. En este sentido, se verifica una diferenciación clara entre el bien jurídico que tutela el ilícito de desobediencia y el que se pretende asegurar mediante la contravención descrita en la Ley General de Salud; así, la norma contemplada en el numeral 314 del Código Penal se encuentra dentro del título de delitos contra la autoridad pública, de modo que la tutela se dirige a proteger la autoridad de los actos emanados de funcionarios públicos; por su parte, la contravención de incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias regulada en el ordinal 378 de la Ley General de Salud se enmarca dentro de la protección del bien jurídico salud pública, que pretende evitar los riesgos de salubridad asociados a determinadas actuaciones de los ciudadanos; esta distinción permite entonces establecer que debe privar el principio de especialidad en el presente asunto, porque ambas normas tutelan bienes jurídicos distintos, y puntualmente, la Ley General de Salud en la contravención que se discute contiene una protección especial que debe privilegiarse, porque no se limita al resguardo de los actos de una autoridad pública, sino que de forma amplia pretende asegurar la salud pública, a través del cumplimiento de los actos emanados por el Ministerio de Salud. La representación del Ministerio Público sostiene que en la especie se dejó de lado la remisión expresa que contiene el precepto de la contravención de la Ley General de Salud, que dispone en el párrafo final: “…sufrirá la pena de cinco a treinta días multa, si el hecho no constituye delito”. (El destacado no corresponde al original). Sin embargo, resulta conveniente advertir que ya esta Sala en oportunidades anteriores ha expuesto su posición en relación con la forma en que debe ser interpretada dicha remisión de subsidiariedad que contiene la norma en cuestión, en el siguiente sentido: “No obstante, esta remisión de subsidiariedad que contiene dicha disposición legal, contrario a lo que propone el Ministerio Público, no debe ser interpretada de forma literal, es decir, descontextualizada de la legislación especial en la cual está regulada, sino que debe ser interpretada de forma sistemática, conforme a lo que la propia Ley General de Salud pretende tutelar. “Interpretación de la ley es –dice MEZGER- el descubrimiento y determinación del propio sentido al objeto de aplicarla a los casos concretos de la vida real. (…) En derecho penal, por imperativo del principio de legalidad, no hay más fuente que la ley, de ahí que la primera misión del penalista sea tratar de averiguar el sentido y alcance de esa ley. Para ello se vienen aplicando tradicionalmente cuatro criterios de interpretación: el gramatical, el histórico, el lógico sistemático y el teleológico”. (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, Introducción al Derecho Penal, Buenos Aires, 2ª. Edición, Editorial B de F, 2001, pp. 216-217). Es decir, para una mejor comprensión del contenido de esa norma contenida en la Ley General de Salud, no es suficiente acudir a una interpretación gramatical, sino que debe ser analizada en el contexto de esa regulación especial para determinar el sentido y verdaderos alcances de esa remisión de subsidiariedad que contiene la contravención del artículo 378 de dicha ley. Para ello entonces debe acudirse a un criterio de interpretación lógico sistemático, que en doctrina se define de la siguiente manera: “El tercer criterio de interpretación es el sistemático o, como algunos prefieren, el lógico-sistemático. Los Códigos modernos constituyen un todo orgánico y sistemático; las palabras y disposiciones legales están normalmente coordinadas entre sí e integradas en un sentido general. De aquí se infiere que pueda y deba atribuirse un significado lógico a la situación de un precepto en el sistema general de una ley. El legislador no es siempre un buen sistemático, pero esto no implica que sus disposiciones no tengan una lógica interna, como lo demuestran los siguientes ejemplos”. (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, ibídem, pp. 225-226). Conforme a este parámetro de interpretación lógico sistemático, esta Sala estima que el numeral 378 de la Ley General de Salud, cuando señala que será aplicable la contravención “…si el hecho no constituye delito”, se refiere a la posibilidad de que se encuentre regulado dentro del ordenamiento jurídico figuras penales en las cuales se incorpore el incumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias como un elemento normativo del tipo penal, sea que se sancione como delito este tipo de acciones de manera más específica, o que el incumplimiento de una orden sanitaria se penalice por encontrarse asociado a otras acciones que también configuren delito; mas no podría interpretarse que dicho precepto haga remisión a cualquier clase de ilícito, como lo supone la representación fiscal”. (Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, resolución número 2019-1550, de las 15:25 horas, del 29 de noviembre de 2019. Integran: Ramírez, Desanti, Zúñiga, Segura, Robleto. Y en igual sentido, el voto 2019-1545, de las 14:56 horas, del 29 de noviembre de 2019). Para la Sala de Casación Penal no es posible interpretar el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud y la remisión de susbsidiariedad que dicho tipo penal contempla bajo una óptica distinta, porque no sólo entrañaría un desconocimiento de la especialidad de la materia contemplada en la Ley General de Salud, como un cuerpo normativo que regula de forma sistemática los temas de salud pública, sino que además, implicaría que dicha contravención se convirtiera en letra muerta, sin posibilidad de ser aplicada, considerando que previo a la promulgación de dicha ley, ya en el Código Penal se regulaba el delito de desobediencia, todo lo cual le restaría sentido lógico al contenido de dicha contravención respecto de la materia que se regula en la Ley General de Salud, según la interpretación normativa que pretende asignarle la recurrente. También es necesario tomar en consideración, siempre bajo esta interpretación sistemática, lo dispuesto en el artículo 7 de la Ley General de Salud, que como principio general aplicable a la materia que en dicha normativa se regula, dispone: “La presente y demás leyes, reglamentos y disposiciones administrativas relativas a la salud son de orden público y en caso de conflicto prevalecen sobre cualquiera otras disposiciones de igual validez formal, sin perjuicio de las atribuciones que la ley le confiere a las instituciones autónomas del sector salud. Queda a salvo lo dispuesto en los convenios y tratados internacionales”. (El destacado no corresponde al original). A través de dicho precepto legal se constata que todo lo regulado en esta ley debe tener aplicación prevalente por su carácter especial, y eso incluye las sanciones que la misma contempla. La exposición de motivos de dicha ley confirma tal propósito, pues expresamente se consignó la finalidad fijada para tal normativa, dirigida a regular la actividad de los sujetos en materia sanitaria, creando un marco específico donde se contemplaran principios generales y normas relativas a la salud: “Así las cosas, en la redacción de la Ley General de Salud que se propone se ha concebido un ordenamiento jurídico básico y normativo, que contenga disposiciones sustantivas que regulen las actividades de los individuos, así como las restricciones a que quedan sometidos en materia de salud. Dada la especial naturaleza de la materia que se regula, se ha procurado, hasta donde ello es jurídicamente posible, establecer principios generales, reservando para el nivel reglamentario las cuestiones de detalle o las que por su naturaleza son materia circunstancial y variable. (…)Constituye, pues, el conjunto de preceptos obligatorios que reconocen a los individuos derechos concernientes a su salud y que regulan su conducta, respecto de todos aquellos asuntos en los que entre en juego la salud de la persona y del grupo, imponiendo, con criterio técnico, restricciones al ejercicio de otros derechos fundamentales que ceden en importancia ante la consideración del interés público. Por último trata de establecer los principios obligatorios básicos sobre las materias contenidas en leyes y reglamentos dispersos o ausentes en la legislación actual”. (http://imagenes.asamblea.go.cr/EINTEGRATOR4/ document.aspx?query= 1009 & doc = 1004369 Consulta Página Oficial Asamblea Legislativa en fecha 05-11-2019). De esta forma, es posible concluir que la Ley General de Salud se trata de una normativa especial que está circunscrita a la regulación concreta de la protección de la salud, como un derecho que reviste un interés público, y en ese tanto, las normas contenidas en ella están destinadas directamente a la protección de ese bien. Más adelante, en la misma exposición de motivos de la mencionada ley, en relación con el tema sancionatorio, se especificó: “Su texto incluye también las prescripciones necesarias para garantizar su obligatoriedad, estableciendo sanciones para la violación de sus principios. En este campo específico y para los fines urgentes de la protección de la salud pública se ha dado mayor relevancia a las medidas administrativas que por propia autoridad pueden dictar las autoridades de salud, que a las sanciones penales propiamente dichas; y ello debe ser así, por cuanto, como se dijo, para los propósitos del resguardo de la salud pública es más importante el cumplimiento de una orden sanitaria, que la imposición de una pena por su quebrantamiento, materia ésta que cae dentro del ámbito del derecho penal, y no del derecho sanitario”. (El destacado no corresponde al original). Por ello, al interpretar el artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud, debe entenderse que necesariamente se hace remisión por subsidiariedad a una figura delictiva que regule una infracción específica en materia de salud pública -como podría ser la regulación contenida en el ordinal 277 del Código Penal-, y no cualquier tipo de norma de orden sancionatorio penal que no esté vinculada a dicha materia, como es el caso del delito de desobediencia. Bajo las anteriores consideraciones, conforme con una interpretación lógico sistemática y en aplicación del principio de especialidad que priva, esta Sala concluye que la conducta atribuida al endilgado encuadra efectivamente en la contravención contemplada en el ordinal 378 de la Ley General de Salud, en virtud de que los hechos probados le atribuyen al imputado la omisión en el cumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias emitidas por las autoridades del Ministerio de Salud, y en consecuencia, no resulta aplicable el delito de desobediencia, pues dicha figura delictiva protege un bien jurídico distinto, y sanciona un incumplimiento general de actos emitidos por funcionarios públicos, mas no la transgresión de órdenes en materia de salud, conforme lo exige la normativa especial. Por ende, se estima que en la especie la recalificación legal de los hechos realizada por el Tribunal de Apelación en el presente asunto fue dispuesta conforme a derecho corresponde, porque se ajusta a esa interpretación sistemática de la Ley General de Salud, a partir de la especialidad de la materia, y las particulares características del tipo penal de la contravención de omisión de cumplimiento de órdenes sanitarias del artículo 378 de la Ley General de Salud, las cuales no son asimilables a lo sancionado en el numeral 314 del Código Penal. Así las cosas, se declara sin lugar el recurso interpuesto por el Ministerio Público y se mantiene incólume lo resuelto por el Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia en virtud de que se concluye que dicho fallo se encuentra apegado a derecho. \n\nPor Tanto:\n\n Se declara sin lugar el motivo primero del recurso de casación interpuesto por la licenciada Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, representante del Ministerio Público. Se mantiene incólume la resolución 2019-1928, de las 13:20 horas, del 28 de octubre de 2019, del Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal del Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José por encontrarse apegada a derecho. Notifíquese.\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nPatricia Solano C.\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nJesús Alberto Ramírez Q.\n\n \n\nÁlvaroBurgos M.\n\n \n\nGerardo Rubén Alfaro V.\n\n \n\n \n\nSandra Eugenia Zúñiga M.\n\n \n\nRVILLEGASH\n\n18-1/3-1-20", "body_en_text": "*150001520472PE*\n\nCase File: 15-000152-0472-PE\n\nRuling: 2020-00863\n\nCRIMINAL CASATION CHAMBER. San José, at eleven hours and forty-nine minutes on the seventeenth of July, two thousand twenty.\n\nCassation Appeal, filed in the present case against José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez, [...]; for the crime of disobedience to authority (desobediencia a la autoridad), committed to the detriment of The Public Authority. Participating in the decision on the appeal are Magistrates Patricia Solano Castro, Jesús Alberto Ramírez Quirós, Álvaro Burgos Mata, Gerardo Rubén Alfaro Vargas, and Sandra Eugenia Zúñiga Morales. Also appearing in this instance is Prosecutor Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, in her capacity as representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público).\n\nWhereas:\n\n1. By judgment No. 2019-1928, issued at thirteen hours and twenty minutes on the twenty-eighth of October, two thousand nineteen, the Trial Criminal Sentence Appeals Court (Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal) of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, resolved: \"THEREFORE: For reasons different from those invoked, the appeal filed by licensed attorney Selenia Arce Prendas, public defender of the accused, is declared with merit, and the conduct is reclassified to the contravention of numeral 378 of the General Health Law (Ley General de Salud). The case is declared time-barred (prescrita), and it is ordered that the accused José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez is acquitted of all penalty and responsibility. NOTIFY.- Raúl Madrigal Lizano Gustavo Gillen Bermudez Gustavo Rojas Gutiérrez Judges of Appeal of Criminal Sentence\" (sic).\n\n2. Against the preceding pronouncement, Prosecutor Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, in her capacity as representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office, filed a cassation appeal.\n\n3. Having verified the respective deliberation, the Chamber proceeded to hear the appeal.\n\n4. The pertinent legal requirements have been observed in the proceedings.\n\nReporting Magistrate Ramírez Quirós; and,\n\nConsidering:\n\nI.- By resolution number 2020-0382, at 11:13 hours, on April 3, 2020, this Chamber admitted the sole ground of the cassation appeal filed by Licensed Attorney Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, as representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office, who challenged judgment number 2019-1928, at 13:20 hours, on October 28, 2019, issued by the Trial Criminal Sentence Appeals Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, a resolution that declared with merit the appeal filed on behalf of the defendant and reclassified the proven facts to the contravention provided for in article 378 of the General Health Law, and since the criminal action was no longer in force according to that reclassification, the case was declared time-barred, and the accused José Manuel Pineda Gutiérrez was acquitted of all penalty and responsibility.\n\nII.- Sole Ground. Disregard of substantive law, articles 23 and 314 of the Penal Code and erroneous application of the contravention provided for in ordinal 378 of the General Health Law. The Prosecutor alleges the disregard of the provisions of articles 23 and 314 of the Penal Code, as well as the erroneous application of the contravention set forth in article 378 of the General Health Law. She states that, according to the accredited events, the accused failed to comply with a sanitary order (orden sanitaria) that had been personally notified to him, and in which he was expressly warned that, in case of non-compliance with it, a case could be opened for the crime of disobedience regulated in article 314 of the Penal Code. The appellant indicates that these facts were reclassified by the Appeals Court upon considering that in the species there was an apparent concurrence of norms (concurso aparente de normas) between the crime of disobedience and the contravention established in the General Health Law, and that the latter norm displaced the crime of disobedience by virtue of the principle of specialty. Consequently, the judges decreed the prescription of the reclassified conduct (contravention) as well as the acquittal of the accused. The prosecuting representative reproaches the decision of the appellate judges, as she considers they incurred in an error because, even though the General Health Law is a special regulation, the aforementioned article 378 expressly provides that, in case of non-compliance with an order or measure issued by health authorities, it will constitute the contravention, provided the act does not constitute a crime. Therefore, she estimates that contrary to what was held by the Appeals Court, by express provision of the General Health Law itself, the principle of specialty does not govern; rather, the application of the criminal type of disobedience prevails. As an injury, she points out that the erroneous classification carried out affected the judgment's outcome, to the detriment of the punitive claim of the prosecuting entity, as it prevented the establishment of a penalty in accordance with the criminal type described and proven in the adversarial proceedings.\n\nIII.- The ground raised is declared without merit. It is necessary, in order to determine which substantive regulation is applicable to the specific case, to take as a starting point the factual framework that was held as accredited in the condemnatory judgment, which was described as follows: \"1.- The accused JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ is engaged in the itinerant sale of food on public roads. 2.- On the twenty-sixth of August of the year two thousand fourteen, the official of the Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud) of Matina, Johan Castro Mayorga, personally notified the accused JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ of Sanitary Order number HC-ARS-M-3205-2014, through which he was ordered to eliminate the itinerant sale of food on public roads, it being noted that in this personal notification, he was also warned that, in case of non-compliance with the sanitary order, a case could be initiated against him for the crime of Disobedience to Authority, in accordance with what is established in numeral 314 of the Penal Code. 3.- The accused JOSE MANUEL PINEDA GUTIERREZ disobeyed the sanitary order, since in Inspection Report number HC-ARS-M-4474-2014 carried out on the date of November 20, 2014, it was determined that the accused continued carrying out the activity of food sales on public roads, precisely in the surroundings of the School of the locality of Bataan.\" (cfr. folio 99 digital file). Following the adversarial proceedings, it was held as proven by the Trial Court (Tribunal de Sentencia) that the defendant, despite being personally notified by the competent health authority of the sanitary order that compelled him to completely eliminate the itinerant sale of food on public roads given the risk to public health, and under the express warning that in case of non-compliance he would incur the crime of disobedience, ignored it, so that subsequently the officials of the Ministry of Health verified that the defendant continued with said commercial activity. In this manner, the Trial Court held the crime of disobedience as configured, regulated in numeral 314 of the Penal Code, which, as relevant, stipulates: \"A prison term of six months to three years shall be imposed on anyone who does not comply or does not enforce, in all its extremes, an order issued by a jurisdictional body or by a public official in the exercise of their functions, provided it has been communicated personally, except if it concerns one's own detention.\" For its part, the Appeals Court considered that the facts demonstrated in the adversarial proceedings actually constituted the contravention regulated in the General Health Law, in Title I \"On Sanctions,\" chapter II \"On Contraventions against Health,\" precisely in article 378, which expressly sanctions: \"Anyone who fails to comply with special or general orders or measures issued by the health authorities shall suffer a penalty of five to thirty days' fine (días multa), if the act does not constitute a crime.\" The appellate judges took this determination and reclassified the proven facts, as they considered that in the species an apparent concurrence between both norms was verified, such that they resolved the controversy by attending to a criterion of specialty. Thus, in the challenged judgment it was stated: \"Once the factual situation has been determined, this chamber considers that it configures the contravention mentioned in numeral 378 of the General Health Law. On this matter, in rulings 2019-101, at 09:25 hours on January 25, 2019, and 2019-136, at 10:35 hours on January 30, 2019, issued by this chamber, with a different integration, in the second of them, the following was stated: '(a) Powers of the administrative authority: Articles 340 and 341 of the General Health Law establish the powers of the sanitary authority to issue orders whose purpose is to prevent or avoid risks or damages to health. Additionally, article 349 of the law under comment establishes: \"Officials of the Ministry who hold inspection positions and who have been specially commissioned to verify infractions of this law or its regulations shall have the character of health authority; they shall have public faith regarding complaints filed against natural or legal persons for acts or omissions that involve an infraction of such provisions or that constitute a crime. Quarantine Inspectors shall have this same character.\" From the foregoing articles, it derives with total clarity that health inspectors (inspectores de salud), who have been commissioned to verify infractions of health regulations, have the character of public authority and in such condition are empowered to issue general or special orders to prevent or avoid harm to people's health. Likewise, article 356 of the Law under comment establishes the actions that the health authority can execute or order when issuing a sanitary order. Likewise, articles 357 to 365 of said special law detail the scope and actions that a health authority can execute or order when issuing an order of this type. From this last group of norms, it is clear that, indeed, the sanitary authority is empowered to order the closure of establishments, cancellation of permits, the order to stop, destroy, or execute works (see in this sense, article 356 of the General Health Law). (b) Inapplicability of article 314 of the Penal Code. In the judgment, the trial judge considered that the non-compliance with the sanitary order was constitutive of the crime of disobedience to authority contemplated in article 314 of the Penal Code, without carrying out an exhaustive and complete analysis of the applicable regulations. Article 314 of the Penal Code establishes: \"A prison term of six months to three years shall be imposed on anyone who does not comply or does not enforce, in all its extremes, an order issued by a jurisdictional body or by a public official in the exercise of their functions, provided it has been communicated personally, except if it concerns one's own detention.\" In turn, article 378 of the General Health Law establishes: 'anyone who fails to comply with special or general orders or measures issued by the health authorities shall suffer a penalty of five to thirty days' fine, if the act does not constitute a crime.\" Given this, the non-compliance with a sanitary order could not configure the crime of disobedience to authority since the General Health Law, in its article 321, contemplates a specific sanction, which displaces the criminal type. In dealing with the crime contained in article 314 of the Penal Code and the contravention established in article 378 of the General Health Law, we find ourselves before an apparent concurrence of norms, according to article 23 of the Penal Code, which states: \"When the same conduct is described in several legal provisions that are mutually exclusive, only one of them shall be applied, as follows: the special norm prevails over the general one, the one that entirely contains another is preferred to the latter, and the one that the law has not expressly or tacitly subordinated to another is applied instead of the accessory one.\" In order to determine which of the norms is applicable, we must govern ourselves by the principles and rules of the cited concurrence. As can be deduced from both norms, the imposed action refers to the act of failing to comply with an order emanating from a public official; however, the contravention contains several specific elements that differentiate it from the crime, as follows: i. Article 378 of the General Health Law describes the non-compliance with a special or general order issued by a health authority, that is, this type of order cannot be issued by any public official, but only by those vested with the character of health authority. ii. The conduct contained in article 378 of the General Health Law directs the prohibited action toward those persons who have been given a sanitary order, that is, it is not just any type of order emanating from a public official, but it is an order that seeks to prevent or avoid damage to people's health or the environment. iii. By virtue of the principle of specialty, the correct approach is the application of the contravention contained in the special law and not the crime regulated in the general norm, as the rule of application of the specific over the general prevails. iv. The General Health Law is a special norm and, in that respect, prevails over the Penal Code, inasmuch as, although both norms protect the same legal interest, public health, the latter prevails, in that the sanitary orders issued by the health inspectors —according to the General Health Law— are carried out within the framework of their competencies and whose purpose is to prevent or avoid damage to people's health or the environment. It suffices here to insist moreover that the Penal Code was published in the official newspaper La Gaceta number 257 on November 15, 1970, and entered into force on November 15, 1971, while the General Health Law was published in La Gaceta number 222 on November 24, 1973, and did not enter into force until February 24, 1974, that is, it is a later norm created by the legislator to apply especially to infractions occurring under the validity of said Law.' This chamber does not ignore that the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, through resolution number 2019-407, at 14:56 hours on April 25, 2019, admitted the cassation appeal filed by the prosecutorial representation against the position contained in the first of the rulings mentioned above. However, as of the date of issuance of this resolution, said appeal has not been resolved, therefore its reasons are still in force. Thus, the facts that were held as accredited are reclassified to the contravention regulated in numeral 378 of the General Health Law.\" (cfr. folio 19-20 main file). Following an analysis of the position presented in the challenged judgment and the grounds supporting it, this Chamber considers that the reclassification verified in the second-instance judgment is proper and consistent with an adequate examination of the rules governing the apparent concurrence of norms. Firstly, it is necessary to return to what is indicated by article 23 of the Penal Code, which, as relevant, states: \"When the same conduct is described in several legal provisions that are mutually exclusive, only one of them shall be applied, as follows: the special norm prevails over the general one, the one that entirely contains another is preferred to the latter, and the one that the law has not expressly or tacitly subordinated to another is applied instead of the accessory one.\" Said legal precept establishes the parameters under which problems of norm application are resolved when, in appearance, different mutually exclusive criminal types (tipos penales) apply to the same conduct, as occurs in the species. In doctrine, the figure of the apparent concurrence of norms is explained as follows: \"The so-called 'apparent concurrence' or also 'improper' contemplates the cases in which only in appearance do two or more criminal laws concur, but which, in reality, one of the concurrent laws excludes the others. In proper concurrence, the concurrent laws are not mutually exclusive, whereas in the improper or apparent one, a closer analysis reveals that one of the laws excludes the application of the others. (...) The apparent or improper concurrence is also usually called 'concurrence of laws,' an expression that is equivocal, for in truth there is no concurrence of laws operating here, but precisely a non-concurrence, which means it is also called 'unity of law,' in opposition to the 'plurality of laws' that would operate in an ideal concurrence. (...) Puig Peña calls it 'collision of criminal norms' and defines it as 'that conflict situation that arises in the application of criminal laws when two or more norms, in force at the time of classifying a criminal conduct, regulate this same factual situation, in such a way that the effectiveness of one necessarily excludes the other.'\" (Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raúl, Tratado de Derecho Penal, Parte General, Tomo IV, Argentina, Editorial Ediar, 1999, pp. 557-558). Taking the aforementioned definition as a starting point, it is clear that a series of parameters or principles is required to discern which criminal norm prevails over the other, in the event that such a collision of laws occurs, as they are precepts that are necessarily exclusive. This Chamber has developed the essential principles for determining the applicable norm, and explains: \"Now then, in addition to determining the protected legal interest, given the complexity that cases of apparent concurrence of norms can reach, doctrine has elaborated the principles of specialty, subsidiarity, and consumption to resolve them. A relationship of specialty exists that excludes the simultaneous application of two criminal types when one of them contains all the elements of the other but adds at least one additional special element. In turn, subsidiarity between types can be express or tacit; in the former, the norm itself establishes it, while the latter option is determined by a teleological analysis of the relationship between both norms. What is decisive about subsidiarity is that, whether expressly or tacitly, there exists a relationship between both types that implies that one is only applicable if the other is not. Finally, consumption occurs when a crime is committed before, during, or after another more serious one, which displaces the first by encompassing its wrongfulness and culpability.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, resolution 2011-000468, at 12:09 hours on April 9, 2011). In the species, to discern between the application of the criminal type of disobedience and the contravention for non-compliance with sanitary health orders contemplated in numeral 378 of the General Health Law, the Criminal Sentence Appeals Court used the principle of specialty as a basis, which is conceived as a relationship where there exists \"...a basic or generic type that contains certain requirements and one or more specific or special types that, constructed on the basis of the same typical action as the former, contain(s) other additional specific requirement(s). These specific requirements can refer to a special modality of the action, to characteristics of the passive subject or links with them, to the use of certain means, to characteristics of the object, to specific purposes, to emotional states, to the context in which the action is executed, or to other situations that specify the conduct, demonstrating a special basis of greater or lesser punishability concerning the basic figure and making it, therefore, more serious –qualified or aggravated types– or less serious –mitigated or privileged types–. One of the types, called 'specific,' describes the conduct in more detail than the other, called 'generic.'\" (Caramuti, Carlos, Concurso de delitos, Editorial Hammurabi, 1st Edition, Buenos Aires, 2005. Pg. 198). Making an analysis of the typical description as such, between the criminal type of disobedience (which contemplates a general action of non-compliance with orders issued by a competent public official) and the contravention of article 378 of the General Health Law (which specifically regulates the non-compliance with sanitary orders issued in particular by health authorities), it is verified that between both figures a relationship of specialty exists, where the contravention contemplated in the General Health Law regulates the conduct to be sanctioned in a more specific way, dealing with the specific non-compliance with sanitary orders that are directly issued by the Ministry of Health, and whose objective is the protection of health and the specific prevention of sanitary risks to society —with the exception of the conduct regulated in the criminal type of article 277 of the Penal Code—. In this sense, a clear differentiation is verified between the legal interest that the crime of disobedience protects and that which is sought to be ensured through the contravention described in the General Health Law; thus, the norm contemplated in numeral 314 of the Penal Code is found within the title of crimes against public authority, so the protection is directed at protecting the authority of acts emanating from public officials; for its part, the contravention for non-compliance with sanitary orders regulated in ordinal 378 of the General Health Law is framed within the protection of the legal interest of public health, which seeks to avoid health risks associated with certain actions of citizens; this distinction allows us then to establish that the principle of specialty must prevail in this matter because both norms protect distinct legal interests, and specifically, the General Health Law, in the contravention under discussion, contains a special protection that must be privileged, because it is not limited to safeguarding the acts of a public authority but broadly seeks to ensure public health through compliance with acts emanating from the Ministry of Health. The representation of the Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that in the species the express referral contained in the precept of the contravention of the General Health Law was set aside, which provides in the final paragraph: \"...shall suffer a penalty of five to thirty days' fine, if the act does not constitute a crime.\" (The highlighting does not correspond to the original). However, it is pertinent to note that this Chamber has already in prior opportunities stated its position regarding how said referral of subsidiarity contained in the norm in question should be interpreted, in the following sense: \"However, this referral of subsidiarity contained in said legal provision, contrary to what the Public Prosecutor's Office proposes, should not be interpreted literally, that is, decontextualized from the special legislation in which it is regulated, but rather must be interpreted systematically, in accordance with what the General Health Law itself intends to protect. 'Interpretation of the law is,' says MEZGER, 'the discovery and determination of its own meaning for the purpose of applying it to specific cases of real life. (...) In criminal law, by imperative of the principle of legality, there is no source other than the law; hence the first mission of the criminal law scholar is to try to ascertain the meaning and scope of that law. For this purpose, four interpretation criteria have traditionally been applied: grammatical, historical, logical-systematic, and teleological.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, Introducción al Derecho Penal, Buenos Aires, 2nd Edition, Editorial B de F, 2001, pp. 216-217). That is, for a better understanding of the content of that norm contained in the General Health Law, it is insufficient to resort to a grammatical interpretation; rather, it must be analyzed in the context of that special regulation to determine the meaning and true scope of that referral of subsidiarity contained in the contravention of article 378 of said law. To do so, a criterion of logical-systematic interpretation must be used, which in doctrine is defined as follows: 'The third criterion of interpretation is the systematic one, or as some prefer, the logical-systematic. Modern Codes constitute an organic and systematic whole; the words and legal provisions are normally coordinated with each other and integrated into a general sense. From this, it can be inferred that a logical meaning can and should be attributed to the situation of a precept within the general system of a law. The legislator is not always a good systematist, but this does not imply that his provisions lack an internal logic, as demonstrated by the following examples.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, ibidem, pp. 225-226). In accordance with this parameter of logical-systematic interpretation, this Chamber considers that numeral 378 of the General Health Law, when it indicates that the contravention will be applicable '...if the act does not constitute a crime,' refers to the possibility that within the legal system, criminal figures exist in which the non-compliance with sanitary orders is incorporated as a normative element of the criminal type (tipo penal), that is, that this type of action is penalized as a crime in a more specific manner, or that the non-compliance with a sanitary order is penalized for being associated with other actions that also constitute a crime; but it could not be interpreted that said precept refers to any type of offense, as the prosecutorial representation assumes.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, resolution number 2019-1550, at 15:25 hours, on November 29, 2019. Members: Ramírez, Desanti, Zúñiga, Segura, Robleto. And in the same sense, ruling 2019-1545, at 14:56 hours, on November 29, 2019). For the Criminal Cassation Chamber, it is not possible to interpret article 378 of the General Health Law and the referral of subsidiarity that said criminal type contemplates from a different perspective, because it would not only entail a disregard of the specialty of the matter contemplated in the General Health Law, as a normative body that systematically regulates public health matters, but also, it would imply that said contravention would become dead letter, without the possibility of being applied, considering that prior to the promulgation of said law, the Penal Code already regulated the crime of disobedience, all of which would deprive the content of said contravention of logical sense regarding the matter regulated in the General Health Law, according to the normative interpretation that the appellant seeks to assign to it. It is also necessary to take into consideration, always under this systematic interpretation, the provisions of article 7 of the General Health Law, which, as a general principle applicable to the matter regulated in said norm, provides: \"This and other laws, regulations, and administrative provisions relating to health are of public order, and in case of conflict they shall prevail over any other provisions of equal formal validity, without prejudice to the powers that the law confers on the autonomous institutions of the health sector. What is provided in international conventions and treaties is exempted.\" (The highlighting does not correspond to the original). Through said legal precept, it is verified that everything regulated in this law must have prevalent application due to its special character, and that includes the sanctions it contemplates. The legislative intent (exposición de motivos) of said law confirms such purpose, as the objective set for such regulation was expressly recorded, aimed at regulating the activity of subjects in health matters, creating a specific framework where general principles and norms relating to health were contemplated: \"Thus, in the drafting of the proposed General Health Law, a basic and normative legal framework has been conceived, containing substantive provisions that regulate the activities of individuals, as well as the restrictions to which they are subject in health matters. Given the special nature of the matter being regulated, an effort has been made, to the extent legally possible, to establish general principles, reserving matters of detail or those that by their nature are circumstantial and variable for the regulatory level. (...) It constitutes, therefore, the set of mandatory precepts that recognize individuals' rights concerning their health and that regulate their conduct regarding all those matters in which the health of the person and the group come into play, imposing, with technical criteria, restrictions on the exercise of other fundamental rights that yield in importance when considering the public interest. Lastly, it seeks to establish the basic mandatory principles on the matters contained in laws and regulations that are dispersed or absent in the current legislation.\"\n\n(http://imagenes.asamblea.go.cr/EINTEGRATOR4/ document.aspx?query= 1009 & doc = 1004369 Consulta Página Oficial Asamblea Legislativa on date 05-11-2019). In this way, it is possible to conclude that the General Health Law (Ley General de Salud) is a special regulation circumscribed to the specific regulation of health protection, as a right of public interest, and to that extent, the rules contained therein are directly aimed at the protection of that good. Later, in the same explanatory memorandum of the aforementioned law, in relation to the sanctioning matter, it was specified: \"Its text also includes the necessary prescriptions to guarantee its mandatory nature, establishing sanctions for the violation of its principles. In this specific field and for the urgent purposes of public health protection, greater relevance has been given to the administrative measures that health authorities can dictate by their own authority, than to the criminal sanctions themselves; and this must be so, because, as stated, for the purposes of safeguarding public health, compliance with a sanitary order is more important than the imposition of a penalty for its breach, a matter which falls within the scope of criminal law, and not health law.\" (Emphasis not in original). Therefore, when interpreting Article 378 of the General Health Law, it must be understood that a referral by subsidiarity is necessarily made to a criminal offense that regulates a specific infraction in public health matters —such as the regulation contained in Article 277 of the Criminal Code (Código Penal)—, and not any type of criminal sanctioning rule that is not linked to said matter, as is the case of the crime of disobedience (desobediencia). Under the foregoing considerations, in accordance with a logical systematic interpretation and in application of the principle of specialty that prevails, this Chamber concludes that the conduct attributed to the accused indeed fits the contravention (contravención) contemplated in Article 378 of the General Health Law, by virtue of the fact that the proven facts attribute to the accused the omission to comply with sanitary orders issued by authorities of the Ministry of Health, and consequently, the crime of disobedience is not applicable, since said criminal offense protects a different legal interest, and sanctions a general non-compliance with acts issued by public officials, but not the transgression of orders in health matters, as required by the special regulation. Therefore, it is considered that in the specific case, the legal reclassification (recalificación legal) of the facts carried out by the Court of Appeal in the present matter was ordered in accordance with applicable law, because it conforms to that systematic interpretation of the General Health Law, based on the specialty of the matter, and the particular characteristics of the criminal type of the contravention of omission to comply with sanitary orders of Article 378 of the General Health Law, which are not comparable to what is sanctioned in numeral 314 of the Criminal Code. Such being the case, the appeal filed by the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) is declared without merit and the decision issued by the Sentencing Appeals Court (Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia) is upheld entirely, as it is concluded that said ruling is in accordance with the law.\n\nTherefore (Por Tanto):\n\nThe first ground of the cassation appeal (recurso de casación) filed by attorney Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office, is declared without merit. Resolution 2019-1928, of 1:20 p.m., of October 28, 2019, of the Sentencing Appeals Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José is upheld entirely, as it is in accordance with the law. Notify.\n\nPatricia Solano C.\n\nJesús Alberto Ramírez Q.\n\nÁlvaro Burgos M.\n\nGerardo Rubén Alfaro V.\n\nSandra Eugenia Zúñiga M.\n\nRVILLEGASH\n\n18-1/3-1-20\n\n(…) Puig Peña calls it \"collision of criminal norms\" and defines it as \"that situation of conflict that arises in the application of criminal laws when two or more norms in force at the time of classifying a criminal conduct regulate this same factual situation, in such a way that the effectiveness of one necessarily excludes the other.\" (Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raúl, Criminal Law Treatise, General Part, Volume IV, Argentina, Editorial Ediar, 1999, pp. 557-558). Taking the aforementioned definition as a starting point, it is clear that a series of parameters or principles is required to elucidate which criminal norm prevails over the other, should such a collision of laws occur, as these are precepts that necessarily exclude each other. This Chamber has developed the essential principles to determine which norm is applicable, and explains: \"Now, in addition to determining the protected legal interest (bien jurídico protegido), given the complexity that cases of apparent concurrence of norms can reach, doctrine has developed the principles of specialty, subsidiarity, and consumption to resolve them. A relationship of specialty exists that excludes the simultaneous application of two criminal types when one of them contains all the elements of the other, but adds at least one additional special element. For its part, subsidiarity between types can be express or tacit; in the former, the norm itself establishes it, while the latter option is determined by a teleological analysis of the relationship between both norms. The determining factor of subsidiarity is that, whether expressly or tacitly, a relationship exists between both types that supposes one is only applicable if the other is not. Lastly, consumption occurs when a crime is committed before, during, or after another more serious crime, which displaces the former by containing its wrongdoing and culpability.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, resolution 2011-000468, of 12:09 hours on April 09, 2011). In the specific case, the Sentence Appeals Court, to discern between the application of the criminal type of disobedience and the contravention of non-compliance with health orders contemplated in numeral 378 of the Ley General de Salud, used the principle of specialty as a basis, which is conceived as a relationship where there exists \"...a basic or generic type that contains certain requirements and one or more specific or special types that, built upon the basis of the same typical action as the former, contain(s) other additional specific requirement(s). These specific requirements may refer to a special modality of the action, characteristics of the passive subject or ties with him, the use of certain means, characteristics of the object, specific purposes, emotional states, the context in which the action is executed, or other situations that specify the conduct, demonstrating a special basis for greater or lesser punishability with respect to the basic figure and making it, therefore, more serious –qualified or aggravated types– or less serious –attenuated or privileged types–. One of the types, called 'specific,' describes the conduct in more detail than the other, called 'generic.' (Caramuti, Carlos, Concurrence of Crimes, Editorial Hammurabi, 1st. Edition, Buenos Aires, 2005. Page. 198). Carrying out an analysis of the typical description as such, between the criminal type of disobedience (which contemplates a general action of non-compliance with orders issued by a competent public official) and the contravention of Article 378 of the Ley General de Salud (which specifically regulates non-compliance with health orders issued in particular by health authorities), it is verified that between both figures a relationship of specialty exists, wherein the contravention contemplated in the Ley General de Salud regulates the conduct to be sanctioned more specifically, dealing with the specific non-compliance with health orders that are directly issued by the Ministry of Health, and whose objective is the protection of health, and the specific prevention of health risks for society –with the exception of the conduct regulated in the criminal type of Article 277 of the Penal Code–. In this sense, a clear differentiation is verified between the legal interest protected by the crime of disobedience and that which is intended to be ensured through the contravention described in the Ley General de Salud; thus, the norm contemplated in numeral 314 of the Penal Code is within the title of crimes against public authority, so that the protection is directed at safeguarding the authority of acts emanating from public officials; for its part, the contravention of non-compliance with health orders regulated in ordinal 378 of the Ley General de Salud is framed within the protection of the legal interest of public health, which aims to avoid the health risks associated with certain actions of citizens; this distinction therefore allows establishing that the principle of specialty must prevail in the present matter, because both norms protect different legal interests, and specifically, the Ley General de Salud in the contravention under discussion contains a special protection that must be privileged, because it is not limited to safeguarding the acts of a public authority, but broadly aims to ensure public health, through compliance with acts issued by the Ministry of Health. The representation of the Public Prosecutor's Office holds that in this case, the express remittance contained in the precept of the contravention of the Ley General de Salud was set aside, which provides in the final paragraph: \"...shall suffer the penalty of five to thirty days' fine, if the act does not constitute a crime.\" (The emphasis does not belong to the original). However, it is appropriate to note that this Chamber has already on previous occasions set forth its position regarding the manner in which said remittance of subsidiarity contained in the norm in question should be interpreted, in the following sense: \"Nevertheless, this remittance of subsidiarity contained in said legal provision, contrary to what the Public Prosecutor's Office proposes, must not be interpreted literally, that is, decontextualized from the special legislation in which it is regulated, but rather must be interpreted systematically, in accordance with what the Ley General de Salud itself intends to protect. 'Interpretation of the law is, says MEZGER, the discovery and determination of its own meaning for the purpose of applying it to concrete cases of real life. (...) In criminal law, by imperative of the principle of legality, there is no source other than the law, hence the first mission of the criminal law expert is to try to ascertain the meaning and scope of that law. To this end, four criteria of interpretation have traditionally been applied: the grammatical, the historical, the logical-systematic, and the teleological.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, Introduction to Criminal Law, Buenos Aires, 2nd. Edition, Editorial B de F, 2001, pp. 216-217). That is, for a better understanding of the content of that norm contained in the Ley General de Salud, it is not sufficient to resort to a grammatical interpretation, but rather it must be analyzed in the context of that special regulation to determine the meaning and true scope of that remittance of subsidiarity contained in the contravention of Article 378 of said law. To do so, one must therefore resort to a logical-systematic interpretation criterion, which in doctrine is defined as follows: 'The third interpretation criterion is the systematic one or, as some prefer, the logical-systematic one. Modern Codes constitute an organic and systematic whole; words and legal provisions are normally coordinated amongst themselves and integrated into a general sense. From this, it is inferred that a logical meaning can and should be attributed to the placement of a precept in the general system of a law. The legislator is not always a good system-builder, but this does not imply that his provisions lack an internal logic, as demonstrated by the following examples.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, ibidem, pp. 225-226). In accordance with this parameter of logical-systematic interpretation, this Chamber considers that numeral 378 of the Ley General de Salud, when it indicates that the contravention will be applicable '...if the act does not constitute a crime,' refers to the possibility that within the legal system, criminal figures may be regulated in which non-compliance with health orders is incorporated as a normative element of the criminal type, whether this type of action is sanctioned as a crime in a more specific manner, or that the non-compliance with a health order is penalized for being associated with other actions that also constitute a crime; but it could not be interpreted that said precept makes a remittance to any kind of illicit act, as the prosecutorial representation supposes.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, Resolution No. 2019-1550, of 15:25 hours, on November 29, 2019. Members: Ramírez, Desanti, Zúñiga, Segura, Robleto. And in the same sense, vote 2019-1545, of 14:56 hours, on November 29, 2019). For the Criminal Cassation Chamber, it is not possible to interpret Article 378 of the Ley General de Salud and the remittance of subsidiarity that said criminal type contemplates under a different perspective, because it would not only entail a disregard for the specialty of the matter contemplated in the Ley General de Salud, as a normative body that systematically regulates public health matters, but it would also imply that said contravention becomes a dead letter, without the possibility of being applied, considering that prior to the enactment of said law, the Penal Code already regulated the crime of disobedience, all of which would strip the content of said contravention of its logical meaning with respect to the matter regulated in the Ley General de Salud, according to the normative interpretation that the appellant seeks to assign to it. It is also necessary to take into consideration, always under this systematic interpretation, the provisions of Article 7 of the Ley General de Salud, which, as a general principle applicable to the matter regulated in said normative body, provides: \"This and other laws, regulations, and administrative provisions relating to health are of public order and in case of conflict prevail over any other provisions of equal formal validity, without prejudice to the powers that the law confers upon the autonomous institutions of the health sector. The provisions of international agreements and treaties are excepted.\" (The emphasis does not belong to the original). Through said legal precept, it is verified that everything regulated in this law must have prevailing application due to its special nature, and that includes the sanctions it contemplates. The statement of legislative intent of said law confirms such a purpose, as the objective set for such regulation was expressly recorded, aimed at regulating the activity of subjects in health matters, creating a specific framework where general principles and norms relating to health were contemplated: \"Thus, in the drafting of the proposed Ley General de Salud, a basic and normative legal framework has been conceived, containing substantive provisions that regulate the activities of individuals, as well as the restrictions to which they are subjected in health matters. Given the special nature of the matter being regulated, an attempt has been made, to the extent legally possible, to establish general principles, reserving matters of detail or those that by their nature are circumstantial and variable for the regulatory level. (...) It constitutes, then, the set of mandatory precepts that recognize individuals' rights concerning their health and regulate their conduct, regarding all those matters in which the health of the person and the group comes into play, imposing, with technical criteria, restrictions on the exercise of other fundamental rights that yield in importance before the consideration of public interest. Finally, it seeks to establish the basic mandatory principles on matters contained in laws and regulations that are dispersed or absent in current legislation.\" (Consultation Official Page Legislative Assembly on date 05-11-2019). In this way, it is possible to conclude that the Ley General de Salud is a special regulation that is circumscribed to the concrete regulation of health protection, as a right of public interest, and in that respect, the norms contained in it are directly aimed at protecting that legal interest. Further on, in the same statement of legislative intent of the aforementioned law, in relation to the sanctioning matter, it was specified: \"Its text also includes the necessary prescriptions to guarantee its mandatory nature, establishing sanctions for the violation of its principles. In this specific field and for the urgent purposes of protecting public health, greater relevance has been given to the administrative measures that health authorities may dictate on their own authority, than to the properly criminal sanctions; and this must be so, because, as stated, for the purposes of safeguarding public health, compliance with a health order is more important than the imposition of a penalty for its breach, a matter which falls within the scope of criminal law, and not of health law.\" (The emphasis does not belong to the original). Therefore, when interpreting Article 378 of the Ley General de Salud, it must be understood that it necessarily makes a remittance by subsidiarity to a criminal figure that regulates a specific infraction in matters of public health –as could be the regulation contained in ordinal 277 of the Penal Code–, and not any type of criminal sanctioning norm that is not linked to said matter, as is the case of the crime of disobedience. Under the foregoing considerations, in accordance with a logical-systematic interpretation and in application of the principle of specialty that prevails, this Chamber concludes that the conduct attributed to the accused indeed fits into the contravention contemplated in ordinal 378 of the Ley General de Salud, by virtue of the fact that the proven facts attribute to the accused the omission in complying with health orders issued by the authorities of the Ministry of Health, and consequently, the crime of disobedience is not applicable, because said criminal figure protects a different legal interest, and sanctions a general non-compliance with acts issued by public officials, but not the transgression of health orders, as required by the special regulation. Therefore, it is deemed that in this case, the legal reclassification of the facts carried out by the Sentence Appeals Court in the present matter was ordered in accordance with the law, because it conforms to that systematic interpretation of the Ley General de Salud, based on the specialty of the matter, and the particular characteristics of the criminal type of the contravention of omission of compliance with health orders under Article 378 of the Ley General de Salud, which are not assimilable to what is sanctioned in numeral 314 of the Penal Code.\n\nThus, the appeal lodged by the Public Prosecutor's Office is declared without merit, and the decision of the Sentence Appeals Court is upheld, since it is concluded that said ruling is in accordance with the law.\n\n**Por tanto:**\n\nIt is declared without merit the first ground of the cassation appeal lodged by licensed attorney Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office.\n\nResolution 2019-1928, of 1:20 p.m., of October 28, 2019, of the Criminal Sentence Appeals Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José remains unaltered, as it is in accordance with the law. Notify.\n\nPatricia Solano C.\n\nJesús Alberto Ramírez Q.\n\nÁlvaro Burgos M.\n\nGerardo Rubén Alfaro V.\n\nSandra Eugenia Zúñiga M.\n\nRVILLEGASH\n\n18-1/3-1-20\n\nFor the Criminal Cassation Chamber, it is not possible to interpret Article 378 of the General Health Law and the reference to subsidiarity that said criminal provision contemplates under a different perspective, because it would not only entail a disregard for the specialty of the matter contemplated in the General Health Law, as a normative body that systematically regulates public health matters, but would also imply that said contravention would become a dead letter, without the possibility of being applied, considering that prior to the enactment of said law, the crime of disobedience was already regulated in the Criminal Code, all of which would deprive the content of said contravention of logical meaning with respect to the matter regulated in the General Health Law, according to the normative interpretation the appellant seeks to assign to it. [...].\n\nIII. (...). Therefore, when interpreting Article 378 of the General Health Law, it must be understood that it necessarily makes a reference by subsidiarity to a criminal figure that regulates a specific infraction in the area of public health —such as the regulation contained in section 277 of the Criminal Code—, and not any type of criminal sanctioning norm that is not linked to said area, as is the case of the crime of disobedience. Based on the foregoing considerations, in accordance with a logical systematic interpretation and in application of the prevailing principle of specialty, this Chamber concludes that the conduct attributed to the defendant effectively fits into the contravention contemplated in section 378 of the General Health Law, by virtue of the fact that the proven facts attribute to the accused the omission in the fulfillment of health orders issued by the authorities of the Ministry of Health, and consequently, the crime of disobedience is not applicable, since said criminal figure protects a different legal interest, and punishes a general breach of acts issued by public officials, but not the transgression of orders in health matters, as required by the special regulation. Therefore, it is considered that in this case the legal reclassification of the facts carried out by the Court of Appeal in the present matter was ordered in accordance with the applicable law, because it conforms to that systematic interpretation of the General Health Law, based on the specialty of the matter, and the particular characteristics of the criminal type of the contravention of omission in the fulfillment of health orders under Article 378 of the General Health Law, which are not comparable to what is sanctioned in numeral 314 of the Criminal Code. (...).\n\nThe General Health Law is a special statute and, as such, prevails over the Penal Code, because, although both statutes protect the same legal interest, public health, the latter prevails insofar as the health orders issued by health inspectors—pursuant to the General Health Law—are carried out within the framework of their competencies and whose purpose is to prevent or avoid harm to people's health or the environment. It suffices here to further insist that the Penal Code was published in the official newspaper La Gaceta number 257 of November 15, 1970, which entered into force on November 15, 1971, while the General Health Law was published in La Gaceta number 222 of November 24, 1973, and entered into force on February 24, 1974, meaning it is a later statute created by the legislator to apply especially to infractions occurring during the validity of said Law.\" This Chamber is not unaware that the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, through resolution number 2019-407, of 2:56 p.m. on April 25, 2019, admitted the cassation appeal filed by the prosecutorial representation against the position contained in the first of the votes mentioned previously. However, as of the date of issuance of this resolution, said appeal has not been resolved, so its reasoning remains in force. Thus, the facts that were deemed accredited are reclassified to the infraction regulated in numeral 378 of the General Health Law.\" (cfr. folio 19-20 main case file). After an analysis of the position set forth in the challenged ruling and the grounds supporting it, this Chamber considers that the reclassification verified in the second-instance ruling is appropriate and consistent with an adequate examination of the rules governing the apparent concurrence of offenses.\n\nFirst, it is necessary to revisit what Article 23 of the Penal Code indicates, which states in relevant part: \"When the same conduct is described in several legal provisions that are mutually exclusive, only one of them shall be applied, as follows: the special statute prevails over the general statute, the statute that entirely contains another is preferred over the latter, and that statute which the law has not expressly or tacitly subordinated to another is applied instead of the accessory statute.\" This legal precept establishes the parameters under which problems of application of statutes are elucidated when, in appearance, different criminal types that exclude each other are applicable to the same conduct, as occurs in the present case. In legal doctrine, the figure of the apparent concurrence of offenses is explained as follows: \"The so-called 'apparent concurrence' or also 'improper concurrence' contemplates the cases in which only in appearance two or more criminal laws concur, but in reality, one of the concurrent laws excludes the rest. In a proper concurrence, the concurrent laws do not exclude each other, whereas in an improper or apparent concurrence, a closer analysis reveals that one of the laws excludes the application of the rest. (…) The apparent or improper concurrence is also often called 'concurrence of laws,' an expression which is equivocal, for in truth no concurrence of laws operates here, but precisely a non-concurrence, which is why it is also called 'unity of law,' in opposition to the 'plurality of laws' that would operate in an ideal concurrence. (…) Puig Peña calls it 'collision of criminal statutes' and defines it as 'that situation of conflict that arises in the application of criminal laws when two or more statutes in force at the time of verifying the classification of a criminal conduct regulate this same situation of fact, in such a way that the effectiveness of one necessarily excludes the other.\" (Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raúl, Tratado de Derecho Penal, Parte General [Treatise on Criminal Law, General Part], Volume IV, Argentina, Editorial Ediar, 1999, pp. 557-558).\n\nTaking the definition mentioned above as a starting point, it is clear that a series of parameters or principles is required to elucidate which criminal statute prevails over the other, in the event that such a collision of laws occurs, as they are precepts that necessarily exclude each other. This Chamber has developed the essential principles for determining which statute is applicable, and explains: \"Now, in addition to determining the protected legal interest, given the complexity that cases of apparent concurrence of offenses can reach, to resolve them doctrine has elaborated the principles of specialty, subsidiarity, and consummation. A relationship of specialty that excludes the simultaneous application of two criminal types exists when one of them contains all the elements of the other, but adds at least one additional special element. For its part, subsidiarity between types can be express or tacit; in the first, the statute itself establishes it, while the second option is determined by a teleological analysis of the relationship between both statutes. The determining factor of subsidiarity is that, whether expressly or tacitly, there exists a relationship between both types that supposes that one is only applicable if the other is not. Finally, consummation occurs when a crime is committed before, during, or after another more serious one, which displaces the former because the latter's wrongfulness and culpability encompass it.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, resolution 2011-000468, of 12:09 p.m. on April 9, 2011).\n\nIn the present case, the Sentencing Appeals Tribunal, to discern between the application of the criminal type of disobedience and the infraction of failure to comply with health orders contemplated in numeral 378 of the General Health Law, used as a basis the principle of specialty, which is conceived as a relationship where there exists \"…a basic or generic type that contains certain requirements and one or more specific or special types that, built upon the basis of the same typical action as the former, contain other additional specific requirement(s). These specific requirements may refer to a special modality of the action, to characteristics of the passive subject or links with them, to the use of certain means, to characteristics of the object, to specific purposes, to emotional states, to the context in which the action is executed, or to other situations that specify the conduct, demonstrating a special basis for greater or lesser punishability with respect to the basic figure and making it, therefore, more serious – qualified or aggravated types – or less serious – attenuated or privileged types. One of the types, called 'specific,' describes the conduct in a more detailed manner than the other, called 'generic.'\" (Caramuti, Carlos, Concurso de delitos [Concurrence of Offenses], Editorial Hammurabi, 1st Edition, Buenos Aires, 2005, Page 198).\n\nPerforming an analysis of the typical description as such, between the criminal type of disobedience (which contemplates a general action of failure to comply with orders issued by a competent public official) and the infraction of Article 378 of the General Health Law (which specifically regulates the failure to comply with health orders issued particularly by health authorities), it is verified that between both figures there exists a relationship of specialty, where the infraction contemplated in the General Health Law more specifically regulates the conduct to be sanctioned, dealing with the specific failure to comply with health orders that are directly issued by the Ministry of Health, and whose objective is the protection of health, and the specific prevention of health risks for society—with the exception of the conduct regulated in the criminal type of Article 277 of the Penal Code. In this sense, a clear differentiation is verified between the legal interest protected by the offense of disobedience and that which is intended to be secured through the infraction described in the General Health Law; thus, the statute contemplated in numeral 314 of the Penal Code is found within the title of crimes against public authority, so the protection is directed at protecting the authority of acts emanating from public officials; for its part, the infraction of failure to comply with health orders regulated in section 378 of the General Health Law is framed within the protection of the legal interest of public health, which seeks to avoid health risks associated with certain actions of citizens; this distinction therefore allows establishing that the principle of specialty must prevail in this matter, because both statutes protect different legal interests, and specifically, the General Health Law, in the infraction under discussion, contains a special protection that must be privileged, because it is not limited to safeguarding the acts of a public authority, but broadly seeks to ensure public health, through compliance with the acts emanating from the Ministry of Health.\n\nThe representation of the Public Ministry argues that in the present case, the express referral contained in the precept of the infraction of the General Health Law was disregarded, which provides in the final paragraph: \"…shall suffer the penalty of five to thirty days' fine, if the act does not constitute a crime.\" (The emphasis is not from the original). However, it is advisable to note that this Chamber has on previous occasions already set forth its position regarding the manner in which said referral of subsidiarity contained in the statute in question must be interpreted, in the following sense: \"Nevertheless, this referral of subsidiarity that said legal provision contains, contrary to what the Public Ministry proposes, must not be interpreted literally, that is, decontextualized from the special legislation in which it is regulated, but rather must be interpreted systematically, in accordance with what the General Health Law itself seeks to protect. 'Interpretation of the law is,' says MEZGER, 'the discovery and determination of the proper sense for the purpose of applying it to concrete cases of real life. (…) In criminal law, by imperative of the principle of legality, there is no source other than the law, hence the first mission of the criminal law scholar is to try to ascertain the sense and scope of that law. To do so, four criteria of interpretation have traditionally been applied: the grammatical, the historical, the logical-systematic, and the teleological.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, Introducción al Derecho Penal [Introduction to Criminal Law], Buenos Aires, 2nd Edition, Editorial B de F, 2001, pp. 216-217). That is to say, for a better understanding of the content of that statute contained in the General Health Law, it is not sufficient to resort to a grammatical interpretation, but rather it must be analyzed in the context of that special regulation to determine the sense and true scope of that referral of subsidiarity that the infraction of Article 378 of said law contains. For this purpose, then, one must resort to a criterion of logical-systematic interpretation, which in doctrine is defined in the following manner: 'The third criterion of interpretation is the systematic or, as some prefer, the logical-systematic. Modern Codes constitute an organic and systematic whole; the words and legal provisions are normally coordinated among themselves and integrated into a general sense. From this it is inferred that a logical meaning can and should be attributed to the situation of a precept in the general system of a law. The legislator is not always a good systematizer, but this does not imply that their provisions lack an internal logic, as the following examples demonstrate.' (Muñoz Conde, Francisco, ibidem, pp. 225-226). In accordance with this parameter of logical-systematic interpretation, this Chamber considers that numeral 378 of the General Health Law, when it indicates that the infraction shall be applicable '…if the act does not constitute a crime,' refers to the possibility that criminal figures may be regulated within the legal system which incorporate the failure to comply with health orders as a normative element of the criminal type, that is, that this type of action is sanctioned as a crime in a more specific manner, or that the failure to comply with a health order is penalized for being associated with other actions that also constitute a crime; but it could not be interpreted that said precept makes a referral to any type of offense, as the prosecutorial representation supposes.\" (Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, resolution number 2019-1550, of 3:25 p.m., on November 29, 2019. Panel: Ramírez, Desanti, Zúñiga, Segura, Robleto. And in the same sense, vote 2019-1545, of 2:56 p.m., on November 29, 2019).\n\nFor the Criminal Cassation Chamber, it is not possible to interpret Article 378 of the General Health Law and the referral of subsidiarity that said criminal type contemplates under a different perspective, because it would not only entail a disregard of the specialty of the matter contemplated in the General Health Law, as a normative body that systematically regulates public health issues, but would also imply that said infraction would become a dead letter, without the possibility of being applied, considering that prior to the enactment of said law, the Penal Code already regulated the crime of disobedience, all of which would detract logical sense from the content of said infraction with respect to the matter regulated in the General Health Law, according to the normative interpretation that the appellant seeks to assign to it.\n\nIt is also necessary to take into consideration, always under this systematic interpretation, the provisions of Article 7 of the General Health Law, which, as a general principle applicable to the matter regulated in said statute, provides: \"This and other laws, regulations, and administrative provisions relating to health are of public order and in case of conflict prevail over any other provisions of equal formal validity, without prejudice to the powers that the law confers on the autonomous institutions of the health sector. The provisions of international treaties and conventions are saved.\" (The emphasis is not from the original). Through said legal precept, it is verified that everything regulated in this law must have preferential application due to its special character, and that includes the sanctions that it contemplates. The explanatory statement of said law confirms such purpose, as the goal set for that normative body was expressly recorded, directed at regulating the activity of subjects in health matters, creating a specific framework where general principles and statutes relating to health were contemplated: \"Thus, in the drafting of the proposed General Health Law, a basic and normative legal system has been conceived, which contains substantive provisions that regulate the activities of individuals, as well as the restrictions to which they are subject in health matters. Given the special nature of the matter being regulated, an effort has been made, as far as is legally possible, to establish general principles, reserving for the regulatory level questions of detail or those which by their nature are circumstantial and variable material. (…) It therefore constitutes the set of mandatory precepts that recognize individuals' rights concerning their health and regulate their conduct, regarding all those matters in which the health of the person and the group comes into play, imposing, with technical criteria, restrictions on the exercise of other fundamental rights that yield in importance before the consideration of the public interest. Finally, it seeks to establish the basic mandatory principles on matters contained in laws and regulations that are scattered or absent in current legislation.\" (Consulted on the Official Page of the Legislative Assembly on 05-11-2019). In this way, it is possible to conclude that the General Health Law is a special statute that is circumscribed to the specific regulation of health protection, as a right that holds a public interest, and to that extent, the statutes contained in it are directly aimed at the protection of that interest.\n\nFurther on, in the same explanatory statement of the aforementioned law, regarding the subject of sanctions, it was specified: \"Its text also includes the necessary prescriptions to guarantee its mandatory nature, establishing sanctions for the violation of its principles. In this specific field and for the urgent purposes of protecting public health, greater relevance has been given to the administrative measures that health authorities can dictate by their own authority, than to strictly criminal sanctions; and this must be so, because, as stated, for the purposes of safeguarding public health, compliance with a health order is more important than the imposition of a penalty for its breach, a matter which falls within the scope of criminal law, and not of health law.\" (The emphasis is not from the original). Therefore, when interpreting Article 378 of the General Health Law, it must be understood that the referral by subsidiarity is necessarily made to a criminal figure that regulates a specific infraction in the matter of public health—as could be the regulation contained in section 277 of the Penal Code—and not any type of criminal sanctioning statute that is not linked to said matter, as is the case of the crime of disobedience.\n\nUnder the foregoing considerations, in accordance with a logical-systematic interpretation and in application of the prevailing principle of specialty, this Chamber concludes that the conduct attributed to the accused effectively fits within the infraction contemplated in section 378 of the General Health Law, by virtue of the fact that the proven facts attribute to the defendant the omission in compliance with health orders issued by the authorities of the Ministry of Health, and consequently, the crime of disobedience is not applicable, because said criminal figure protects a different legal interest, and sanctions a general failure to comply with acts issued by public officials, but not the transgression of orders in health matters, as required by the special statute. Therefore, it is considered that in the present case, the legal reclassification of the facts carried out by the Appeals Tribunal in this matter was ordered in accordance with the law, because it conforms to that systematic interpretation of the General Health Law, based on the specialty of the matter, and the particular characteristics of the criminal type of the infraction of omission to comply with health orders in Article 378 of the General Health Law, which are not comparable to what is sanctioned in numeral 314 of the Penal Code.\n\nThus, the appeal filed by the Public Ministry is declared without merit, and the decision of the Sentencing Appeals Tribunal is upheld because it is concluded that said ruling is in accordance with the law.\n\n**Por Tanto:**\n\nIt is declared without merit the first ground of the cassation appeal filed by attorney Ana Carolina Campos Camacho, representative of the Public Ministry.\n\nResolution 2019-1928, issued at 1:20 p.m. on October 28, 2019, by the Criminal Sentencing Appeals Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San José, remains unaltered, as it is in accordance with the law. Notify.\n\n| | | |\n|---|---|---|\n| | | |\n| | Patricia Solano C. | |\n| | | |\n| Jesús Alberto Ramírez Q. | | Álvaro Burgos M. |\n| Gerardo Rubén Alfaro V. | | Sandra Eugenia Zúñiga M. |\n\nRVILLEGASH\n18-1/3-1-20" }