{ "id": "nexus-sen-1-0007-483709", "citation": "Res. 09042-2010 Sala Constitucional", "section": "nexus_decisions", "doc_type": "constitutional_decision", "title_es": "Rechazo de acción de inconstitucionalidad contra el Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros", "title_en": "Dismissal of unconstitutionality action against Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law", "summary_es": "La Sala Constitucional rechaza la acción de inconstitucionalidad promovida por la empresa Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica S.A. y varias coadyuvantes contra el Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros (Ley 8653). Dicha norma concede un plazo de seis meses para que las sociedades anónimas ajusten su razón social, eliminando términos como \"seguros\" o \"aseguradora\", en consonancia con el nuevo marco de regulación del mercado asegurador. La empresa alegaba violación del principio de irretroactividad de la ley (art. 34 de la Constitución Política) por afectar derechos adquiridos. La Sala determina que el Transitorio IX no es retroactivo, pues opera hacia futuro al ordenar el ajuste de las denominaciones a partir de su entrada en vigor, sin anular los efectos jurídicos pasados de la inscripción. Además, rechaza la tesis de \"retroactividad en sentido débil\" y analiza la medida bajo los principios de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad, concluyendo que la restricción es proporcionada y necesaria para proteger a los consumidores y asegurar la transparencia del nuevo mercado regulado. La acción se declara sin lugar.", "summary_en": "The Constitutional Chamber dismisses the unconstitutionality action filed by Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica S.A. and several coadjuvants against Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Law 8653). Said provision grants a six-month period for corporations to adjust their corporate names by removing terms like \"insurance\" or \"insurer\", in line with the new insurance market regulatory framework. The company alleged a violation of the non-retroactivity principle (Art. 34 of the Constitution) by affecting vested rights. The Chamber determines that Transitory IX is not retroactive, as it operates prospectively by requiring name adjustments from its entry into force, without nullifying past legal effects of the registration. It also rejects the \"weak retroactivity\" theory and examines the measure under the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, concluding that the restriction is proportionate and necessary to protect consumers and ensure transparency in the newly regulated market. The action is dismissed.", "court_or_agency": "Sala Constitucional", "date": "19/05/2010", "year": "2010", "topic_ids": [ "_off-topic" ], "primary_topic_id": "_off-topic", "es_concept_hints": [ "acción de inconstitucionalidad", "irretroactividad", "derechos adquiridos", "razonabilidad y proporcionalidad", "Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros", "transitorio", "razón social" ], "article_citations": [ { "law": "Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, incluye reforma integral a la Ley N°", "article": "9", "doc_id": "norm-63749", "source": "metadata" }, { "law": "Ley 8653", "article": "9", "doc_id": "norm-63749", "source": "metadata" } ], "keywords_es": [ "acción de inconstitucionalidad", "retroactividad", "derechos adquiridos", "razonabilidad", "proporcionalidad", "mercado de seguros", "razón social", "Ley 8653", "Transitorio IX" ], "keywords_en": [ "unconstitutionality action", "retroactivity", "vested rights", "reasonableness", "proportionality", "insurance market", "corporate name", "Law 8653", "Transitory IX" ], "excerpt_es": "En el caso de los accionantes esta tesis se concreta en su pretensión de que 'los derechos adquiridos' originado a su favor con la inscripción legalmente realizada en el pasado, de una razón social y que incluye la palabra \"seguros\", se mantenga para siempre, aún a pesar de que el legislador haya decidido -de ahora en adelante- modificar profundamente las reglas de juego de la actividad de seguros y reservar jurídicamente tal término y otros semejantes, fijando -a partir de la fecha de la vigencia de ley- una nuevas condiciones jurídicas para su empleo lícito por parte de los particulares. Para este tribunal esta tesis resulta jurídicamente insostenible...\n\nPor las razones expuestas, considera la Sala que el establecimiento de una restricción en el uso de los términos relacionados con la actividad aseguradora en el texto de la ley discutida así como su consecuencia recogida en el transitorio noveno y consistente en el ajuste \"de ahora en adelante\" de las condiciones para su uso valido por parte de los interesados, resulta ser una medida ajustada a los parámetros constitucionales de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad, de modo que la acción debe ser declarada sin lugar.", "excerpt_en": "In the case of the plaintiffs, this thesis materializes in their claim that the 'vested rights' created in their favor by the legally performed past registration of a corporate name that includes the word 'insurance' must be maintained forever, even though the legislator has decided — from now on — to profoundly modify the rules of the insurance activity and to legally reserve such term and similar ones, establishing — from the law's effective date — new legal conditions for its lawful use by individuals. For this court, this thesis is legally untenable...\n\nFor the reasons stated, the Chamber considers that the restriction on the use of terms related to insurance activity in the challenged law, as well as its consequence set forth in Transitory IX consisting of the adjustment 'from now on' of the conditions for their valid use by interested parties, is a measure that conforms to the constitutional parameters of reasonableness and proportionality; therefore, the action must be dismissed.", "outcome": { "label_en": "Dismissed", "label_es": "Sin lugar", "summary_en": "The Constitutional Chamber dismisses the unconstitutionality action against Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law, finding it does not violate the non-retroactivity principle and that the measure is reasonable and proportionate.", "summary_es": "La Sala Constitucional declara sin lugar la acción de inconstitucionalidad contra el Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, por considerar que no infringe el principio de irretroactividad y que la medida es razonable y proporcionada." }, "pull_quotes": [ { "context": "Considerando V", "quote_en": "the norm clearly does not go into the past to regulate events and situations that occurred before its entry into force… it orders that the passive subjects that fall under the factual premise of the transitory norm as of its entry into force… must carry out —in the future— a certain conduct defined therein; all of which seeks that persons adjust 'from now on' their legal situation to what the law provides.", "quote_es": "la norma claramente no va hacia el pasado para regular hechos ocurridos y situaciones ocurridas antes de su entrada en vigor... lo que ordena es que los sujetos pasivos que se encuentren en el supuesto de hecho de la norma transitoria a partir de su entrada en vigencia... deben realizar -a futuro- una cierta conducta allí mismo definidas en el transitorio; con todo lo cual se busca que las personas ajusten 'de ahora en adelante' su situación jurídica a lo dispuesto por la ley." }, { "context": "Considerando VI", "quote_en": "for this court this thesis is legally untenable, not only for the reason already indicated by the doctrine itself, which points to the inconvenience of such freezing insofar as it can result in a paralysis of the general will related to the advancement of the legal system... but also for two other important reasons...", "quote_es": "para este tribunal esta tesis resulta jurídicamente insostenible, no solamente por la razón ya señalada por la propia doctrina y que apunta la inconveniencia de tal congelamiento en tanto que puede traducirse en una paralización de la voluntad general relacionada con el avance del ordenamiento jurídico... sino -además- por otras dos importantes razones..." }, { "context": "Considerando VIII (citando sentencia 1995-3929)", "quote_en": "In sum, the guarantee of due process in relation to the law is the constitutional requirement that laws must be reasonable, that is, they must contain an equivalence between the premise of the norm and the consequences it establishes for that premise, taking into account the social circumstances that motivated it, the ends pursued by it, and the means chosen by the legislator to achieve them...", "quote_es": "En síntesis, la garantía del debido proceso con relación a la ley, es la exigencia constitucional de que las leyes deben ser razonables, es decir, que deben contener una equivalencia entre el supuesto de la norma y las consecuencias que ellas establecen para dicho supuesto, tomando en cuenta las circunstancias sociales que la motivaron, los fines perseguidos por ella y el medio escogido por el legislador para alcanzarlos..." } ], "cites": [ { "id": "norm-63749", "citation": "Ley 8653", "title_en": "Insurance Market Regulatory Law", "title_es": "Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, incluye reforma integral a la Ley N°", "doc_type": "law", "date": "22/07/2008", "year": "2008" } ], "cited_by": [ { "id": "pgr-21194", "citation": "C-132-2019", "title_en": "Legal status of properties encompassing the restricted zone of the maritime-terrestrial zone registered before Transitory III of Law 4558", "title_es": "Situación jurídica de propiedades que abarcan la zona restringida de la ZMT inscritas antes del Transitorio III de la Ley 4558", "doc_type": "dictamen", "date": "14/05/2019", "year": "2019" } ], "references": { "internal": [ { "target_id": "norm-63749", "kind": "concept_anchor", "label": "Ley 8653 Transitorio IX" } ], "external": [ { "ref_id": "nexus-sen-1-0007-496970", "url": "", "kind": "related_voto", "label": "", "nexus_id": "sen-1-0007-496970" }, { "ref_id": "nexus-sen-1-0007-603192", "url": "", "kind": "related_voto", "label": "", "nexus_id": "sen-1-0007-603192" } ] }, "source_url": "https://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0007-483709", "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": [], "sentencias_relacionadas": [ "sen-1-0007-496970", "sen-1-0007-603192" ], "temas_y_subtemas": [], "cascade_only": false, "amendment_count": 0, "body_es_text": "hmendez\n hmendez\n 2\n 0\n 2010-09-08T17:32:00Z\n 2010-09-08T17:32:00Z\n 6\n 8815\n 48486\n Poder Judicial\n 404\n 114\n 57187\n 12.00\n \n \n \n \n \n 21\n \n false\n false\n false\n \n ES-CR\n X-NONE\n X-NONE\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n MicrosoftInternetExplorer4\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n*090022160007CO*\n\nExp: 09-002216-0007-CO \n\nRes. Nº 2010-09042\n\nSALA CONSTITUCIONAL DE LA CORTE SUPREMA DE JUSTICIA. San José, a las catorce horas treinta minutos del diecinueve de mayo de dos mil diez.-\n\n Acción de inconstitucionalidad promovida por Boris Molina Acevedo portador de la cédula de identidad número 1-696-764 y José Roberto Díaz André, mayor, cédula de identidad 1-617-689, en se condición de representantes de la empresa PROFESIONALES EN SEGUROS DE COSTA RICA Sociedad Anónima en contra del Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653.- Intervinieron en este proceso Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, mayor, casada una vez, vecina de Curridabat, cédula de identidad número 4-127-782, su calidad de Procuradora General de la República así como las empresas \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" y \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" en calidad de coadyuvantes.-\n\n.Resultando:\n\n 1.- Por escrito recibido en la Secretaría de la Sala a las dieciséis de febrero de dos mil nueve, el accionante solicita que se declare la inconstitucionalidad del Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653 pues alega que dicha norma viola de forma expresa especial el principio de irretroactividad de la ley consagrado en el artículo 34 de la Constitución Política, en el tanto en que establece una orden expresa al Registro Público para que de oficio elimine o suprima las palabras \"seguros, \"reaseguros\" \"aseguradora\" y \"aseguramiento\" de cualquier sociedad mercantil inscrita en esa entidad, todo en virtud de así disponerlo el artículo 29 inciso b) de la Ley número 8653 como una regla para las sociedades que se inscriban a partir de la vigencia de esa ley.- Se genera con ello a juicio del accionante una grave lesión del derecho consagrado en el artículo 34 Constitucional pues la empresa accionante está inscrita desde mil novecientos noventa y cinco, de modo que la norma transitoria viene a regular situaciones jurídicas completamente consolidadas en beneficio de nuestra sociedad anónima, lesionando con ello derecho adquiridos de los socios de la empresa accionante.- Se afirma que la sentencia número 2765-97 deja claramente establecidas las condiciones en las cuales debe entenderse lo que es un derecho adquirido y aquello que debemos entender como una situación jurídica consolidada, de manera que aplicando dicha doctrina al caso se podría decir que el artículo 103 del Código de Comercio es la base sobre la que surgió a la vida jurídica una regla que conecta un presupuesto fáctico el derecho a establecer un nombre concreto que identifique una sociedad mercantil, con una consecuencia dada, es decir el nombre de \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica\" inscrito en el Registro Mercantil. Por ello se solicita la anulación del artículo transitorio señalado.-\n\n 2.- Por resolución de las ocho horas veinticinco minutos del dieciocho de febrero de dos mil nueve, visible a folio17 del expediente, se le dio curso a la acción, confiriéndole audiencia a la Procuraduría General de la República.- \n\n 3.- Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, mayor, casada una vez, vecina de Curridabat, cédula de identidad número 4-127-782, en su condición de Procuraduría General de la República rindió su informe visible a folios veinte y siguientes y señala que lo primero que debe aclararse es que el fondo del reclamo se limita a la supuesta infracción del artículo 34 de la Constitución Política, de modo se limitará a expresar su criterio jurídico exclusivamente sobre ese punto. agrega que lo primero que debe definirse es si existe un derecho adquirido en el caso del nombre o razón social que ostenta la accionante. Para la Procuraduría la conclusión en este punto es positiva si tomamos en cuenta que la doctrina mayoritaria señala que el nombre de una sociedad forma parte indispensable de su individualización y por ello existe un derecho para ellas que, según el órgano asesor se deriva de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos que señala en su artículo 2 el derecho de toda persona al reconocimiento de su personalidad jurídica. Por otra parte, y siguiendo ese razonamiento, señala la Procuraduría que lo cierto es que la norma no está privando de su denominación a una empresa sino que la está obligando a adecuarla en una palabra, cual es \"seguros\" y ello en razón de una nueva realidad creada por la propia Ley Reguladora del Mercados de Seguros. y que al permitir una apertura en dicho mercado, hace que deban tomarse medidas en favor de los usuarios tal y como lo exige el propio artículo 46 Constitucional. La cuestión es entonces, según se explica, si ese cambio quebranta el artículo 34 Constitucional al perjudicar un derecho adquirido o una situación jurídica consolidada; para la Procuraduría la respuesta es negativa porque no se le está sustrayendo al accionante de su patrimonio. Para sustentar esta respuesta se cita la Opinión Jurídica 139-99 en donde se deja claramente establecido que el concepto de derechos adquiridos recogido por la Constitución Política, es de índole predominantemente patrimonial. Se agrega además que en la misma sentencia que cita el recurrente la Sala señala que no existe el derecho a la inmutabilidad del ordenamiento jurídico, de manera que a criterio de órgano asesor, el quid del asunto está en determinar si la afectación del derecho de la accionante es acorde con el derecho de la Constitución es decir con sus principios y sus normas, a lo cual se responde que sí, en el tanto en que se cumple con los principios de que los derechos constitucionales no son absolutos y que el Estado puede limitarlos siempre que lo haga dentro de cierto marco conformado por condiciones formales y materiales, tal y como ocurre en este caso. Por ello solicita rechazar por el fondo la acción planteada.\n\n 4.- El señor Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández. mayor, divorciado, Agente de Seguros, con cédula número 1-585-874, se apersona en este expediente en su condición de Apoderado generalísimo de la empresa \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\" y señala que acuerpa los argumentos señalados por el accionante en tanto la situación de la empresa que representa es similar en tanto opera desde mil novecientos noventa y siete con ese nombre.- Agrega que es necesario rebatir el dictamen de la Procuraduría, porque carece de un claro planteamiento en tanto por una parte, afirma que lo que se modifica es solamente una palabra \"seguros\" sin percatarse de que se trata en el fondo de la actividad a la cual se dedican desde hace muchos años pues son justamente agentes de seguros.- Además, si bien se reconoce la posibilidad de que el ordenamiento se modifique ello debe hacerse hacia el futuro, pero no tocar las situaciones que ya existe.n y menos cuando han creado derechos subjetivos en favor de los administrados que han ingresado a la esfera patrimonial como en el caso concreto pues el nombre de la sociedad es lo que ha permitido generar confianza en los clientes de estas sociedades.- Por ello solicita que se declara con lugar la acción planteada.-\n\n 5.- Carlos Francisco Mata Fonseca, mayor, casado, agente de seguros, cédula número 3-201-748, en su calidad de representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", Olman Rafael Vega Castillo, mayor, casado, agente de seguros, cédula 1-364-999, representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, mayor, casado agente de seguros con cédula número 2-280-607, en su condición de representante legal junto con los dos anteriormente citados, de la empresa \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" se apersonan también en este proceso y solicitan ser tenidos como coadyuvantes por asistirle interés legítimo en tanto se encuentran de hecho y actualmente en el supuesto de la norma discutida.- En cuanto al fondo señalan que se violenta en primer término la libertad empresarial y el derecho al trabajo al obligárseles a eliminar la palabra \"seguro\" de su denominación, lo anterior porque en nuestro derecho constitucional según se ha entendido, el ámbito de estas libertades significan el ejercicio de la actividad empresarial de forma libre mientras sea lícita, así como la libre operación y toma de decisiones respecto del destino de la empresa. Ello no sucede en este caso en que el legislador con su transitorio afecta el valor comercial que tienen las denominaciones sociales y no es tan sencillo que se diga que se trata de una sola palabra porque en este caso la palabra lo es todo. El Estado no puede mediante imposición regular la forma de organización y el funcionamiento de las sociedades y si bien existe en algunos casos intereses públicos lo cierto es que éstos tienen como límites los derechos económicos.- También se reclama afectación a la libertad personal en el sentido de poder determinar libremente la conducta de cada uno siempre que su actuación sea lícita. Esta disposición está contenida en el artículo 28 de la Constitución, de modo que es claro que la posibilidad de una empresa de seguir utilizando la denominación social que ya se encontraba inscrita antes de la vigencia es un derecho adquirido y una situación jurídica consolidada de modo que, en tanto no contraría el artículo 28 está fuera la acción de la ley.- Debe tenerse claro que no hay afectación de la moral pública, pues lo cierto es que el argumento de la confusión del usuario no es realmente cierto y de hecho existen mecanismos que son igualmente apropiados.- Igual sucede con el orden público porque los intereses de la comunidad no se ven beneficiados por la aplicación retroactiva que se ordena. Por este motivo, también se reclama infracción de los principios de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad pues la norma impugnada no supera las condiciones antedichas, pues en primer lugar la obligación retroactiva no es necesaria, para proteger el conjunto de bienes de la colectividad. Además el supuesto interés puede ser alcanzado por medios menos lesivos, pues el supuesto fin que persigue alcanzar la no confusión de los consumidores puede alcanzarse con medios menos gravosos.-En realidad si se quiere engañar al consumidor se le hará con otros medios y no solo con el nombre.- En cuanto a la proporcionalidad debe indicarse que el perjuicio causado es excesivo respecto a la ventaja supuestamente obtenida.- Finalmente se viola también el principio de irretroactividad de la ley pues el caso es claro en cuanto a que se trata de situaciones que están plenamente consolidadas bajo la ley anterior y no pueden ser modificadas.- Por todo ello se pide la declaratoria de inconstitucionalidad de la norma discutida.-\n\n 6.- Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, mayor, casado, agente de seguros, con cédula de identidad 1-295-635, en su condición de representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\", se apersona a solicitar ser tenido como coadyuvante en favor de la declaratoria de inconstitucionalidad de la norma con fundamento en las mismas razones expuestas por el accionante principal.\n\n 7.- Los edictos a que se refiere el párrafo segundo del artículo 81 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional fueron publicados en los números 47, 48 y 49 del Boletín Judicial, de los días nueve, diez y once de marzo de dos mil nueve. (folio 35).\n\n 8.- Se prescinde de la vista señalada en los artículos 10 y 85 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional, con base en la potestad que otorga a la Sala el numeral 9 ibídem, al estimar suficientemente fundada esta resolución en principios y normas evidentes, así como en la jurisprudencia de este Tribunal.\n\n 9.- En los procedimientos se han cumplido las prescripciones de ley.\n\n Redacta el Magistrado Mora Mora; y,\n\nConsiderando:\n\n I.- Sobre las coadyuvancias presentadas. Dentro de este proceso se han presentado gestiones de coadyuvancia por parte de Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, en su condición de Apoderado generalísimo de la empresa \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\", como representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, en su condición de representante de la empresa \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" y Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, como representante legal de la empresa \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\". Sobre tales gestiones se omitió resolver en la oportunidad procesal correspondiente de manera que debe ahora emitirse criterio sobre tales peticiones. En concreto, todas las gestiones se plantean por parte de interesados legítimos en el resultado de la acción planteada en tanto que resultan afectados por la disposición discutida. Por otra parte, en cuanto al plazo de quince días establecido en el artículo 83 de la Ley de Jurisdicción Constitucional para la admisión de estas intervenciones, se tiene que éste inició el nueve de marzo de dos mil nueve con la primera publicación del edicto (folio 20), de manera que desde el punto de vista temporal todas las gestiones están en tiempo, excepto la planteada por la empresa \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima\" que presentó su escrito el veinticinco de mayo de dos mil nueve, muchos días después de vencido el plazo concedido por la norma recién citada. Con fundamento en lo dicho, procede admitir las gestiones de coadyuvancia planteadas por las empresas \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" y \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" mientras que se debe rechazar por extemporánea la interpuesta por la empresa \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\".\n\n II.- Sobre la admisibilidad. Esta acción se plantea al tenor del párrafo primero del artículo 75 de la Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional para defender los derechos e intereses de la accionante dentro del recurso de amparo número 09-001767-0007-CO, al cual se le dio curso y está pendiente de ser resuelto por parte de esta Sala, de manera que, cumplidos éste y los demás requisitos formales y materiales, lo procedente es entrar a conocer por el fondo el reclamo planteado.-\n\n III.- Objeto de la impugnación. El objeto de la impugnación de inconstitucionalidad a través de este proceso es el artículo Transitorio I de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, número 8653 cuyo texto es el siguiente:\n\n \"Transitorio IX.- Ajuste de razones sociales de sociedades anónimas.-\n\n De conformidad con lo establecido en el inciso b) del artículo 29 de esta Ley, se concede un plazo de seis meses contado a partir de la entrada en vigor de esta Ley, para que las sociedades anónimas inscritas en el Registro Público ajusten su razón social. Vencido ese plazo, el Registro Público, de oficio, eliminará los términos improcedentes.\"\n\n De igual manera, y por ser expresamente mencionado en el artículo transcrito, resulta relevante citar en lo pertinente el artículo 29 de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros: \n\n\"Artículo 29.- Objetivos y funciones de la Superintendencia General de Seguros.-\n\nLa Superintendencia tiene por objeto velar por la estabilidad y el eficiente funcionamiento del mercado de seguros, así como entregar la más amplia información a los asegurados. Para ello, autorizará, regulará y supervisará a las personas, físicas o jurídicas, que intervengan en los actos o contratos relacionados con la actividad aseguradora, reaseguradora, la oferta pública y la realización de negocios de seguros. Además de los deberes establecidos en esta Ley, al superintendente le será aplicable lo establecido en el artículo 156, en lo correspondiente a la realización de la actividad aseguradora, la intermediación, la oferta pública o los negocios de seguros sin autorización; los artículos 129 y 131, a excepción de los literales m),n) y ñ), todos de la Ley orgánica del Banco Central de Costa Rica, No. 7558, de 3 de noviembre de 1995. También le serán aplicables las normas establecidas en los artículos 151,152, 166 y 180 de la Ley reguladora del mercado de valores, No. 7732, de 17 de diciembre de 1997, y sus reformas. De lo anterior se exceptúan la divulgación de la información estadística agregada y la información dispuesta en esta Ley. Igualmente, le será aplicable lo establecido en el artículo 57 de la Ley No. 7523, Régimen privado de pensiones complementarias y reformas de la Ley reguladora del mercado de valores y del Código de Comercio, de 7 de julio de 1995.\n\nAdicionalmente, le corresponderán las siguientes funciones:\n\na) Autorizar, suspender, cancelar y otorgar las licencias y autorizaciones administrativas, de conformidad con esta Ley, a los sujetos supervisados.\n\nb) Autorizar los estatutos sociales y sus modificaciones de entidades aseguradoras, así como el uso en la razón social de los términos \"seguros\", \"aseguradora\", \"reaseguros\", \"aseguramiento\", \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" y \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" o análogos que se pretendan inscribir en el Registro Público; este último no tramitará ninguna inscripción de ese tipo, si no se cuenta con la autorización indicada.\n\n(...)\"\n\n IV.- El entorno jurídico de la norma cuestionada.- Para la mejor comprensión de la disputa jurídica planteada en este caso, es importante anotar que el Transitorio discutido así como el artículo 29 inciso b) que se menciona, pertenecen a la Ley la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, número 8653, normativa que es producto de un profundo cambio de filosofía en lo que se refiere a la actividad de seguros en Costa Rica. Se trata de la decisión tomada por el legislador de abandonar el esquema de monopolio a cargo de una institución estatal en materia de seguros y todas sus actividades relacionadas, para optar por abrir el mercado a la competencia privada en tales materias, reservándose el Estado las competencias y potestades necesarias para el ejercicio de una fuerte labor de control y regulación. La redacción de los artículos 1 y 2 no deja lugar a dudas respecto del alcance y misión estatal aquí señalada y de las actividades sobre las que recae esa supervisión estatal .- \n\n\"Artículo 1.- Objeto de esta Ley.- La presente Ley es de orden e interés públicos y tiene como objeto:\n\na) Proteger los derechos subjetivos e intereses legítimos de los asegurados y terceros interesados que se generen a partir de la oferta, suscripción comercialización o ejecución de contratos de seguros.\n\nb) Crear y establecer el marco para la autorización, la regulación, la supervisión y el funcionamiento de la actividad aseguradora, reaseguradora, intermediación de seguros y servicios auxiliares.\n\nArtículo 2.- Actividad aseguradora y reaseguradora La actividad aseguradora y la actividad reaseguradora solo podrán desarrollarse en el país por parte de entidades que cuenten con la respectiva autorización administrativa emitida por la Superintendencia General de Seguros, en adelante Superintendencia, de conformidad con lo dispuesto en el artículo 7 de esta Ley.\n\nLa actividad aseguradora consiste en aceptar, a cambio de una prima, la transferencia de riesgos asegurables a los que estén expuestas terceras personas, con el fin de dispersar en un colectivo la carga económica que pueda generar su ocurrencia. La entidad aseguradora que acepte esta transferencia se obliga contractualmente, ante el acaecimiento del riesgo, a indemnizar al beneficiario de la cobertura por las pérdidas económicas sufridas o a compensar un capital, una renta u otras prestaciones convenidas.\n\nPor actividad reaseguradora se entiende aquella en la que, con base en un contrato de reaseguro y a cambio de una prima, una entidad reaseguradora acepta la cesión de todo o parte del riesgo asumido por una entidad aseguradora, en virtud de los contratos de seguro subyacentes. En lo que corresponda, a las entidades reaseguradoras les serán aplicables las disposiciones establecidas en la legislación para las entidades aseguradoras.\n\nEstarán sometidas al ámbito de aplicación de esta Ley, todas las personas físicas o jurídicas, que participen, en forma directa o indirecta, en el desarrollo o realicen en cualquier forma la actividad aseguradora, reaseguradora, su intermediación y servicios auxiliares de seguros.\n\nQuedan excluidos del alcance de esta Ley, los sistemas de seguridad social obligatorios administrados por la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), de conformidad con lo establecido en el artículo 73 de la Constitución Política, el artículo 2 de la Ley No. 17, de 22 de octubre de 1943, que crea la CCSS; los regímenes especiales de pensiones creados por ley y la póliza mutual obligatoria administrada por la Sociedad de Seguros de Vida del Magisterio Nacional, de acuerdo con lo establecido en los artículos 496 al 508 del Código de Educación, Ley No. 181, de 18 de agosto de 1944, y sus reformas.\"\n\n En ese mismo sentido y de forma aún más concreta en relación con el tema de esta acción, encontramos lo dispuesto en el artículo 19 de la citada ley en donde se plasman claramente los límites a la actividad de intermediación en materia de seguros, que es precisamente a la que se dedican tanto los accionantes como los coadyuvantes:\n\n\"Artículo 19.-Intermediación de seguros.- La actividad de intermediación de seguros comprende la promoción, oferta y, en general, los actos dirigidos a la celebración de un contrato de seguros, su renovación o modificación, la ejecución de los trámites de reclamos y el asesoramiento que se preste en relación con esas contrataciones. La intermediación de seguros no incluye actividades propias de la actividad aseguradora o reaseguradora.\n\nEl Consejo Nacional desarrollará, reglamentariamente, los aspectos relacionados con la actividad de intermediación que se establecen en este capítulo, incluido lo referente a la homologación de programas de formación de intermediarios, el otorgamiento de licencias a agentes y corredores, el trámite de acreditación de agentes y sociedades agencias de seguros, el otorgamiento de autorizaciones administrativas de sociedades corredoras y las garantías que deben cumplir estas últimas.\n\nSolo podrán realizar intermediación de seguros los intermediarios de seguros autorizados debidamente de conformidad con esta Ley. Se consideran intermediarios de seguros los agentes de seguros, las sociedades agencias de seguros, las sociedades corredoras de seguros y los corredores de estas últimas. Las sociedades agencias de seguros y sociedades corredoras de seguros, solo podrán desarrollar la actividad de intermediación por medio de agentes de seguros y corredores, respectivamente. En los casos de comercio transfronterizo de servicios de intermediación y servicios auxiliares de seguros, se estará a lo dispuesto en el artículo 16 de esta Ley.\n\nLa Superintendencia deberá solicitar, administrativa o judicialmente, que quien infrinja la disposición del párrafo anterior deje de usar la expresión empleada indebidamente. La autoridad judicial competente, administrativa o municipal, podrá decretar el cierre del negocio, de acuerdo con la presente Ley o la ley de patentes, si luego de transcurridos diez días naturales, contados a partir de la notificación respectiva, la infracción no ha cesado. El cierre se mantendrá mientras no se corrija la falta.\n\nLas denominaciones \"agente de seguros\" o \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" y \"corredor de seguros\" o \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" y los términos equivalentes en cualquier idioma, quedan reservados para que sean utilizados únicamente por las personas y entidades que, de acuerdo con la presente Ley, cuenten con la licencia y acreditación correspondientes para comercializar seguros.\n\n Importa destacar de la anterior disposición un par de párrafos: el tercero, dentro del que se dispone la necesidad de contar con una autorización de la autoridad respectiva para realizar labores de intermediación de seguros, comprendidas como tales aquellas a las que se dedican los accionantes y coadyuvantes, y el quinto en donde se declaran como \"reservadas\" las palabras y denominaciones que allí se citan. Dicha reserva lo es como lo dice la ley para \"que sean utilizadas únicamente por las personas y entidades que, de acuerdo con la presente ley, cuenten con licencia y acreditación correspondiente para comercializar seguros.\" Así, con este marco jurídico se reordena -hacia adelante- la actividad comercial relacionada con los seguros en nuestro país, y es desde luego como parte fundamental de tal regulación que se ordena que, en el nuevo sistema implantado, los términos \"agente de seguros\" o \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" y \"corredor de seguros\" o \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" y los términos equivalentes en cualquier idioma, queden reservados y sujetos a control en cuanto a su uso, precisamente como un mecanismo más de regulación de la actividad aseguradora y en aplicación de la necesaria protección de los consumidores según lo dispone el artículo 46 de la Constitución Política. E igualmente, es dentro de este marco reordenador que se inserta el transitorio discutido en cuanto tiende claramente a hacer realidad esa reserva de los términos arriba mencionados, como acto propio del control y regulación de la actividad de intermediación en seguros que se impone en la ley.-\n\n V.- Reclamo por lesión del artículo 34 Constitucional.- Con la anterior explicación resulta más sencillo entrar a revisar el principal reclamo que hace la empresa accionante y que se relaciona con el artículo 34 de la Constitución Política, pues, según se indica, el transitorio IX constituye una aplicación retroactiva de la ley en perjuicio de sus derechos adquiridos y de situaciones jurídicas consolidadas en su favor. Su principal alegato es que desde hace mucho tiempo y en adecuación a la normativa anteriormente vigente, inscribió en el Registro Público una sociedad mercantil con el nombre \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\", es decir un nombre que contiene la palabra \"seguros\" y ahora, mucho tiempo después de la inscripción y de operar válidamente en el mercado, con la nueva ley y mediante el transitorio discutido se pretende despojarlo de tal nombre, sin que exista soporte constitucional para tal actuación. Al respecto, lo primero que debe tenerse en cuenta es que el artículo 34 Constitucional señala:\n\n \"Artículo 34.- A ninguna ley se le dará efecto retroactivo en perjuicio de persona alguna, o de sus derechos adquiridos o de situaciones jurídicas consolidadas.-\"\n\n De tal modo, para resolver el planteamiento del accionante debe estudiarse en primer lugar la noción de efecto de retroactivo de la ley, recogida en la primera parte del citado numeral constitucional porque con ella se establece de forma precisa la acción que se prohíbe cuando se está en presencia de las condiciones recogidas en el resto del texto, es decir perjuicio para una persona, existencia de derechos adquiridos o constatación de una situación jurídica consolidada. Tal comprensión del concepto señalado y la acción que él describe debe partir del hecho de que lo normal es que las normas jurídicas se promulguen para regular situaciones fácticas o hechos que ocurren dentro de la época de su vigencia, dejando fuera de su alcance y de sus regulaciones tanto los hechos acaecidos en el pasado respecto de la ley (es decir antes de su entrada en vigor), como también los que suceden luego de la derogación de la norma (o sea después de su pérdida de vigencia). En cambio, en los en casos de retroactividad de la ley se abandona esa situación usual de vigencia de las normas pues en la norma retroactiva toda su estructuración jurídica y su enlace con la realidad se mueve hacia atrás en el tiempo. De tal manera, en primer lugar se mueve hacia atrás en el tiempo el presupuesto de hecho ya que en él se describen situaciones y hechos específicos cuya surgimiento a la realidad se ha dado en un momento anterior al de entrada en vigor de la norma; pero también -en segundo lugar- se retrotraen igualmente las consecuencias jurídicas que la norma impone a tales hechos porque se pretende que ellas entren a valer y ser efectivas también desde una fecha o momento anterior al de la entrada en vigencia de la ley. Se trata entonces de retro-traerse el tiempo de ciertas norma jurídicas (tanto el supuesto de hecho como la consecuencia jurídica) para que ejerzan su poder jurídico regulador tomando hechos y adosándoles consecuencias jurídicas, los cuales se ubican, ambos, en el pasado en relación con la entrada en vigencia de la propia norma. Desde esta perspectiva, la explicación recogida en el considerando anterior respecto de lo actuado por el legislador al establecer la ley, así como la lectura tanto del artículo 29 inciso b), como del transitorio IX discutido revelan la ausencia de cualquier intención de cambiar las consecuencias jurídicas asignadas en el pasado a hechos o situaciones ya ocurridos antes de su fecha de vigencia. Por el contrario, la ley en general y el transitorio discutido en particular tienen como presupuesto de hecho, vale decir sucesos cuya existencia de ocurrir, se materializará en tiempo posterior a la entrada entrar en vigor de la disposición, a saber: la persistencia, luego de que entre a regir la ley, de nombres o razones sociales cuya denominación incluya alguna de las palabras reservadas. De igual forma, las consecuencias jurídicas asignadas a dicho presupuesto valen también solamente para el futuro, pues se mantienen incólumes todos los efectos jurídicos concretados antes de la vigencia de la ley. En otros términos, la norma discutida, de acuerdo con el sentido de toda la ley, busca regular el tema del uso de ciertos términos en los nombres de las sociedades \"a partir de ahora\" es decir netamente dentro de su ámbito de vigencia, pues se señala que, \"...se concede un plazo de seis meses contado a partir de la entrada en vigor de esta Ley, para que las sociedades anónimas inscritas en el Registro Público ajusten su razón social. Vencido ese plazo, el Registro Público, de oficio, eliminará los términos improcedentes.\" De tal modo, la norma claramente no va hacia el pasado para regular hechos ocurridos y situaciones ocurridas antes de su entrada en vigor, como lo sería por ejemplo anular los actos de inscripción de las respectivas razones sociales desde el momento en que se realizaron, o modificar los efectos jurídicos atribuidos en su momento a los hechos y actos realizados en fechas anteriores a la de entrada en vigencia de la ley. Al contrario, lo que ordena es que los sujetos pasivos que se encuentren en el supuesto de hecho de la norma transitoria a partir de su entrada en vigencia o sea quienes, luego de ponerse en vigor la ley, sean titulares las razones sociales que incluyen las palabras \"seguros\", \"aseguradora\", \"reaseguros\", \"aseguramiento\", \"sociedad agencia de seguros\", \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" o análogos- deben realizar -a futuro- una cierta conducta allí mismo definidas en el transitorio; con todo lo cual se busca que las personas ajusten \"de ahora en adelante\" su situación jurídica a lo dispuesto por la ley. Consecuentemente con esto, si la norma no va hacia el pasado, entonces no tiene sentido preguntarse por la posible existencia de perjuicios para persona alguna, o por derechos adquiridos o situaciones jurídicas consolidadas al tenor del artículo 34, dado que ello resultaría necesario para validar o invalidar la intervención jurídica de la ley en un tiempo anterior a su entrada en vigencia, lo que -como se explicó- no sucede en este caso.-\n\n VI.- El anterior análisis, si bien resulta suficiente para desechar el reclamo por violación al artículo 34 Constitucional, obliga no obstante a esclarecer un aspecto que ha sido abordado por los accionantes y que consiste en entender que también estaría incluido dentro del recién citado artículo constitucional, lo que la doctrina denomina \"retroactividad en sentido débil\", concepto éste, que ha sido empleado para designar la protección contra intentos de modificación -ya no a través de un regreso normativo al pasado, sino también hacia futuro- del tipo y el alcance de los efectos jurídicos que tengan como causa y se deriven de derechos adquiridos y situaciones jurídicas consolidadas concretadas en el pasado. Así entendido, se trataría de una especie de \"encapsulamiento\" de las relaciones jurídicas creadas en un momento específico del tiempo y gracias al cual se mantendrían las consecuencias jurídicas y los efectos jurídicos que se entiendan como derivados de derechos adquiridos y situaciones jurídicas consolidadas, de modo tal que dichos efectos jurídicos se vuelven inmodificables (en perjuicio) y deben ser respetados por los operadores jurídicos, incluyendo entre ellos a los jueces y el legislador. En el caso de los accionantes esta tesis se concreta en su pretensión de que \"los derechos adquiridos\" originado a su favor con la inscripción legalmente realizada en el pasado, de una razón social y que incluye la palabra \"seguros\", se mantenga para siempre, aún a pesar de que el legislador haya decidido -de ahora en adelante- modificar profundamente las reglas de juego de la actividad de seguros y reservar jurídicamente tal término y otros semejantes, fijando -a partir de la fecha de la vigencia de ley- una nuevas condiciones jurídicas para su empleo lícito por parte de los particulares. Para este tribunal esta tesis resulta jurídicamente insostenible, no solamente por la razón ya señalada por la propia doctrina y que apunta la inconveniencia de tal congelamiento en tanto que puede traducirse en una paralización de la voluntad general relacionada con el avance del ordenamiento jurídico, y un obstáculo para remediar situaciones injustas, sino -además- por otras dos importantes razones, a saber: en primer lugar, porque se deja de lado el hecho de que todo ordenamiento jurídico, estudiado y observado en un momento específico del tiempo, se nos presenta como el producto e interacción de un amplio conjunto efectos jurídicos en progreso y que se están realizando en ese momento, todo como parte normal del desarrollo de innumerables derechos adquiridos con anterioridad. Por ello la promulgación de cualquier norma jurídica, en cualquier tiempo, viene a alterar siempre y de alguna forma tales efectos jurídicos generados por normas jurídicas anteriores que -en muchísimos casos- son origen de derechos adquiridos que habría que respetar. En otros términos, el conjunto de derechos y obligaciones que corresponden a una persona de forma específica en un momento del tiempo, según el ordenamiento jurídico, se presentan necesariamente como el resultado de los efectos y las consecuencias jurídicas originadas por las respectivas normas jurídicas que los reconocieron y atribuyeron, por lo que cualquier modificación posterior y lesiva sería inconstitucional según esta línea de razonamiento. De este modo, y solo por mencionar dos ejemplos representativos, esta línea de razonamiento nos llevaría a rechazar jurídicamente la existencia y posibilidad de la revocación de actos administrativos cuyo objetivo es justamente privar de efectos jurídicos a futuro a ciertos actos perfectamente válidos creadores de derechos subjetivos; o bien -similarmente- habría que negar jurídicamente la posibilidad de introducir limitaciones de interés social al ejercicio del derecho de propiedad, porque tal acto perjudica sin duda alguna a los propietarios, respecto del alcance y modalidad de ejercicio del derecho de propiedad que se plasmó -e inmovilizó- en su favor, cuando adquirieron su derecho en el pasado y al amparo de la ley. En segundo lugar esta forma de razonar, a más de jurídicamente deficiente, resulta también innecesaria para lograr la protección del ciudadano frente a la modificación arbitraria, injusta y \"hacia adelante\" de los efectos jurídicos derivados de derechos adquiridos o situaciones jurídicas consolidadas, porque si bien históricamente en algún momento ella pudo justificarse en aquellos ordenamientos donde el legislador carecía en la práctica de medios de control constitucional respecto de su ámbito de acción y grado de interferencia en los derechos de las personas, la verdad es que en la actualidad, no tiene sentido desvirtuar el concepto de retroactividad, para lograr la defensa de los administrados, si más bien, a raíz de la evolución del constitucionalismo en las últimas décadas, se han acuñado y puesto en práctica instrumentos jurídicos apropiados para la revisión de la corrección constitucional de lo actuado por las autoridades públicas en relación con lo que significa afectación de los derechos de los ciudadanos. Concretamente, es común en los Tribunales Constitucionales de nuestro ámbito jurídico y por supuesto también en esta Sala, el empleo de las nociones de “razonabilidad y proporcionalidad” cuya finalidad es justamente la servir de instrumentos para enjuiciar las normas jurídicas y el quehacer legislativo con el fin de asegurar que la restricción y limitación de derechos fundamentales se realice dentro del marco permitido por la Constitución Política. Es por esa razón que -tal y como acertadamente se plantea en las coadyuvancias- la posible infracción constitucional por la modificación a futuro de los efectos jurídicos derivados de un derecho adquirido no radica en el artículo 34 Constitucional porque técnicamente no existe retroactividad que analizar, sino que más bien la lesión -de existir- se ubicaría como una infracción a los principios de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad que la jurisprudencia constitucional ha señalado como de necesario acatamiento en la producción legislativa.- Es a dicho análisis y estudio al que procede abocarse para la determinación de infracciones constitucionales en el Transitorio discutido y ello se hace en los siguientes considerandos.-\n\n VII.- Reclamo por infracción de los principios constitucionales de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad. En orden a la recién citada verificación de la razonabilidad y proporcionalidad del Transitorio cuestionado, debe apuntarse primero que los derechos fundamentales, y entre ellos los de libertad de comercio y de trabajo que citan los coadyuvantes, se conciben -tanto doctrinalmente como en la propia y reiterada jurisprudencia de esta Sala- como susceptibles de ser limitados, cuando constitucionalmente existan los motivos apropiados para ello. En el caso de la actividad de intermediación en la actividad aseguradora, que es la que interesa a los reclamantes, se constata una decisión estatal, tomada a través de los medios constitucionalmente establecidos, dirigida a reordenar la actividad aseguradora y sus actividades relacionadas, decisión que incluye la imposición de cumplimiento de ciertas condiciones para el ejercicio de intermediación en materia de seguros, según se desprende del articulado de la ley. Alegan los accionantes que las medidas tomadas en relación a restringir el uso de ciertas expresiones y vocablos constituye una intromisión en el quehacer empresarial, lo cual solo está permitido en el caso de protección a la moral, al orden público o a derechos de terceros. No obstante, para este Tribunal ese es justamente el caso, en donde el legislador, al amparo de tales supuestos contenidos en el artículo 28 Constitucional, ha optado por abrir el mercado de los seguros a la participación privada, bajo condiciones específicas claramente definidas en la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653 y en concreto en los artículos 1, (Objeto de esta Ley); 2 (Actividad aseguradora y reaseguradora) y particularmente el 19 (intermediación de seguros) en sus párrafos tercero y quinto. Todos ellos (ya transcritos textualmente en el considerando cuarto de esta resolución) en conjunto con el resto de la ley, lo que pretenden es mantener el apropiado control y comportamiento en una esfera de la actividad económica relevante y lograr el cumplimiento de la noción de orden público constitucional a través del apropiado desenvolvimiento de la sociedad, así como la preservación de derechos de terceros, razones que justifican entonces tales limitaciones frente a los derechos fundamentales a la libertad en general y a la libertad de empresa que se dicen afectados.- \n\n VIII.- Sin embargo, lo dicho en el considerando inmediatamente anterior respecto de la posibilidad del legislador de imponer limitaciones al ejercicio de los derechos fundamentales no puede significar -como también ha tenido oportunidad de afirmarse anteriormente- que resulta válida cualquier limitación que decida imponer el legislador al ejercicio de los derechos fundamentales solamente porque logre demostrarse que atienden al cumplimiento otros fines constitucionalmente relevantes. Más bien, como ya se tiene claramente establecido, se requiere además que tales medidas resulten razonables y proporcionadas tomando en cuenta tanto la limitación al derecho fundamental impuesta como el beneficio que se logra en relación con el logro de otro u otros objetivos constitucionales. Sobre el tema se ha dicho que:\n\n“Debe señalarse que, en principio, no basta que las medidas que impliquen una turbación en la libertad del individuo hayan sido establecidas por ley formal para que esas medidas se justifiquen constitucionalmente. En efecto, no todo lo legal es constitucio­nalmente válido. De modo que, para determinar su justificación o validez constitucional, resulta imperioso ponderar si las cir­cunstancias sociales que motivaron al legislador a sancionar una determinada ley guardan proporción con los fines perseguidos con ésta y el medio escogido para alcanzarlos. Así, la Constitución provee al legislador de ciertos contenidos normativos enunciados por ella misma, contenidos que le permiten a éste crear el resto de la norma legal para cada caso sobre una base técnica que debe ser racional. Es decir con sustento en una base científica. A raíz de esta base científica es que debe elegir el contenido de la ley -medios- para lograr ciertos fines estimados socialmente como necesarios. Esa razonabilidad jurídica aparece cuando se bastantea el presupuesto fáctico de la norma con las consecuen­cias, prestaciones, deberes o facultades que ésta impone a sus destinatarios. En esta materia, la garantía del debido proceso se traduce fuera de su denotación puramente procesal en una exigencia de razonabilidad de las actuaciones estatales -leyes, actos administrativos, y sentencias- y al ser la ley una de ellas, cada vez que el legislador dicta un acto de este tipo conforme a la Constitución debe efectuar una valoración de razo­nabilidad -conforme al patrón general que son los principios y normas constitucionales- para determinar la proporción aludida. En síntesis, la garantía del debido proceso con relación a la ley, es la exigencia constitucional de que las leyes deben ser razonables, es decir, que deben contener una equivalencia entre el supuesto de la norma y las consecuencias que ellas establecen para dicho supuesto, tomando en cuenta las circunstancias socia­les que la motivaron, los fines perseguidos por ella y el medio escogido por el legislador para alcanzarlos...\" (sentencia número 1995-3929) \n\n Estos conceptos se han venido apuntalando a lo largo del tiempo y así por ejemplo, en las sentencias 1998-4812 y 2001-11543 se expuso respectivamente:\n\n“Como también ha dicho la Sala, aparte de requisitos formales -de producción-, una norma debe cumplir con otros, de fondo, que junto a aquellos, nos permitan establecer su validez y en cuanto a estos últimos, el de razonabilidad resulta trascendental, entendida la razonabilidad como una apropiada adecuación entre los medios dispuestos por la norma para alcanzar los fines, con particular análisis de la adecuación de los medios dispuestos por la norma y la ideología de la Constitución y los derechos y libertades contemplados por ella. Si los medios son contrarios a esos derechos o libertades, en sí o por sus efectos, estaremos frente a una ausencia de razonabilidad, y en el caso de las normas impugnadas, la Sala encuentra que se da esa ausencia.”(sentencia 1998-4812)\n\n“…Es decir, que una norma o acto público o privado sólo es válido cuando, además de su conformidad formal con la Constitución, esté razonablemente fundado y justificado conforme a la ideología constitucional. De esta manera se procura, no sólo que la ley no sea irracional, arbitraria o caprichosa, sino además que los medios seleccionados tengan una relación real y sustancial con su objeto. Se distingue entonces entre razonabilidad técnica, que es, como se dijo, la proporcionalidad entre medios y fines; razonabilidad jurídica, o la adecuación a la Constitución, en general, y en especial, a los derechos y libertades reconocidos o supuestos por ella; y finalmente, razonabilidad de los efectos sobre los derechos personales, en el sentido de no imponer a esos derechos otras limitaciones o cargas que las razonablemente derivadas de la naturaleza y régimen de los derechos mismos, ni mayores que las indispensables para que funcionen razonablemente en la vida de la sociedad…(P)ara determinar si la norma efectivamente transgredió el debido proceso sustantivo (razonabilidad) y si por ello resulta inconstitucional, lo que procede es analizar si la disposición se subordina a la Constitución Política, adecua sus preceptos a los objetivos que pretende alcanzar, y da soluciones equitativas con un mínimo de Justicia..”. (sentencia 2001-11543)\n\n Se concluye de la jurisprudencia recién expuesta que la razonabilidad hace parte integrante del control constitucional con el fin de asegurar que las leyes no resulten en un ejercicio arbitrario y sin sentido del poder público, sino que respondan a necesidades y motivaciones reales. No obstante, tal y como también lo ha señalado la Sala en la resolución número 2008-18575 de las catorce horas cincuenta y cinco minutos diecisiete de diciembre de dos mil ocho: \n\n\"... (N)o escapa a este Tribunal el hecho fundamental de que en este tema específico de la forma en que debe responderse a las necesidades y exigencias de la vida en sociedad, no existe algo así como “la mejor solución” o “la solución correcta” de la que quepa decir que es netamente “mejor” o “superior” a las demás posibles. Por el contrario, en este tema en particular es necesario partir de una premisa fundamental y es que lo normal es la existencia de un conjunto más o menos amplio de opciones que pueden en un momento determinado resultar razonables y adecuadas para el logro da la finalidad que se persigue. Igualmente, tampoco se escapa el hecho de que en el ejercicio de este balance de elementos que inciden para la toma de una decisión, pueden entrar a jugar incontables elementos de juicio, todo ello dependiendo de la profundidad y alcance con que se quiera abordar la cuestión de cuáles son los medios adecuados a los fines perseguidos. Lo anterior es más claro aún en el caso del Derecho Constitucional en donde lo normal es también la existencia de fines del mismo rango que interactúan entre sí. Por ello el concepto de razonabilidad como parámetro de constitucionalidad se ha abordado y entendido bajo la figura de un marco que delimita una variedad de actuaciones que pueden entenderse todas ellas como razonables, de modo que solamente aquellos actos que resulten fuera de éste, deben tenerse como irrazonable y por ende inconstitucionales. Sobre este punto en particular la Sala ha expresado lo siguiente, precisamente al analizar un Decreto Ejecutivo:\n\n“En realidad se discute un supuesto exceso cometido por el Poder Ejecutivo, en el ejercicio concreto de sus funciones de regulación y control del comercio, y en el fondo lo que el accionante reclama es lo inadecuado e innecesario del citado Decreto.- Sobre este último tema la Sala, ha tenido oportunidad de pronunciarse de la siguiente forma:\n\n\"En cuanto al principio constitucional de razonabilidad, que el accionante alega como violado, se refiere, como se dijo en la sentencia número 1739-92, de las once horas cuarenta y cinco minutos del primero de julio de mil novecientos noventa y dos: \"... una norma o acto público o privado sólo es válido cuando, además de su conformidad formal con la Constitución, esté razonablemente fundado y justificado conforme a la ideología constitucional. De esta manera se procura, no sólo que la ley no sea irracional, arbitraria o caprichosa, sino además que los medios seleccionados tengan una relación real y sustancial con su objeto. Se distingue entonces entre razonabilidad técnica, que es, como se dijo, la proporcionalidad entre medios y fines; razonabilidad jurídica, o la adecuación a la Constitución en general, y en especial, a los derechos y libertades reconocidos o supuestos por ella; y finalmente, razonabilidad de los efectos sobre los derechos personales, en el sentido de no imponer a esos derechos otras limitaciones o cargas que las razonablemente derivadas de la naturaleza y régimen de los derechos mismos, ni mayores que las indispensables para que funcionen razonablemente en la vida en sociedad\". Este principio no se refiere, como lo interpreta el accionante, al análisis de criterios puramente técnicos, que no tienen relación con derechos y libertades reconocidas en la Constitución Política. Si el accionante considera que los criterios aplicados en las normas que se cuestionan son erróneos, pueden promover las reformas legales del caso pero no pretender que, a través de una acción de inconstitucionalidad se efectúen dichas reformas\" (sentencia número 1550-95 de las quince horas cincuenta y un minutos del veintiuno de marzo de mil novecientos noventa y cinco).\n\nAdemás, se ha dejado claramente expresado que la competencia de esta Sede se limita a excluir del ordenamiento los actos totalmente irrazonables, pero no ha sustituir ni a enjuiciar a las autoridades públicas en la ponderación de los elementos que pueden hacer una opción más adecuada que otra:\n\n\"... debe advertirse que en sentido estricto la razonabilidad equivale a justicia, así, por ejemplo, una ley que establezca prestaciones científicas o técnicamente disparatadas, sería una ley técnicamente irracional o irrazonable, y por ello, sería también jurídicamente irrazonable. En este sentido cabe advertir que no es lo mismo decir que un acto es razonable, a que un acto no es irrazonable, por cuanto la razonabilidad es un punto dentro de una franja de posibilidades u opciones, teniendo un límite hacia arriba y otro hacia abajo, fuera de los cuales la escogencia resulta irrazonable, en razón del exceso o por defecto, respectivamente...\"(00486-94 de las dieciséis horas tres minutos del veinticinco de enero de mil novecientos noventa y cuatro).\"\n\n IX.- Con fundamento en los conceptos y consideraciones anteriores se puede concluir que la limitación que imponen tanto el Transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653, como en general los restantes artículos de la ley respecto del uso de ciertos términos como términos como \"seguros\", \"aseguradora\", \"reaseguros\", \"aseguramiento\", \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" y \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" o análogos en los estatutos sociales de entidades aseguradoras y sus modificaciones, así como en la razón social de las personas jurídicas interesadas, no padece de los defectos de falta de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad que se les atribuye. En efecto, tal y como se explicó en el citado considerando cuarto anterior, el legislador realizó un profundo cambio en el sector económico correspondiente a la actividad aseguradora y sus labores afines, pasando de un monopolio estatal a un sistema de actividad regulada. Igualmente, y como también se indicó, como parte de este nuevo modelo se aprecia una fuerte impronta reguladora que debería permitirle al Estado a través de los órganos competentes velar de forma efectiva por la transparencia y corrección de los diferentes actores de este nuevo sector de actividad económica. Así las cosas, es perfectamente comprensible que como parte de este modelo, y como una derivación de la necesidad de vigilancia y control para su adecuado funcionamiento en beneficio de los consumidores, el legislador haya considerado jurídicamente necesario establecer en la ley una fuerte limitación al uso de las expresiones relacionadas con la actividad, tal y como las denominaciones \"agente de seguros\" o \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" y \"corredor de seguros\" o \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" y otros términos equivalentes mencionados en el artículo 19 de texto legal. Y suma aún más a esta razonabilidad y proporcionalidad, el hecho de que tal limitación no deriva en prohibición absoluta de uso, como parece plantearse por el recurrente, sino que de los textos legales transcritos resulta claro ya no solo que los términos se pueden usar por parte de quienes cumplan con los requisitos necesarios para presentarse ante el público como intermediarios de la actividad aseguradora, sino también que los propios accionantes podían y pueden -si cumplen con las condiciones legales necesarias- mantener el uso de los términos de uso restringido en sus razones sociales. Por último, y sobre esa misma línea, resulta igualmente razonable el que el legislador lleve hasta el final su decisión de restringir el uso de términos relacionados con la actividad de intermediación en el mercado de seguros y prohíba su empleo por cualquiera que no sea uno de los sujetos sometidos a control y autorización por los órganos competentes; no tendría sentido y sería una clara fuente de confusión para las personas interesadas y el público consumidor, si como lo pretenden los recurrentes y coadyuvantes, se mantuviera legalmente la posibilidad de que términos relacionados con la intermediación en seguros pudieran ser usados y explotados y publicitados por personas y empresas que no cuentan con autorización para esa actividad por no haber cumplido los requisitos necesarios para realizarla. Ello sin duda resultaría completamente atentatorio respecto de los fines que busca la ley e incluso lesivo para los derechos constitucionales de los consumidores que tienen derecho a recibir protección \"en su seguridad e intereses económicos\" y a \"recibir información adecuada y veraz\" y \"un trato equitativo\" como reza el artículo 46 Constitucional. Por las razones expuestas, considera la Sala que el establecimiento de una restricción en el uso de los términos relacionados con la actividad aseguradora en el texto de la ley discutida así como su consecuencia recogida en el transitorio noveno y consistente en el ajuste \"de ahora en adelante\" de las condiciones para su uso valido por parte de los interesados, resulta ser una medida ajustada a los parámetros constitucionales de razonabilidad y proporcionalidad, de modo que la acción debe ser declarada sin lugar.\n\n X.- Conclusión. El transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653 no infringe el artículo 34 de la Constitución Política, en primer lugar porque no dispone retroactivamente, sino que lo hace hacia el futuro, en tanto regula hacia adelante la situación de las razones sociales que incluyen los términos reservados definidos en el artículo 29 de la citada ley. De la misma forma, el reclamo por la alteración por parte del transitorio impugnado, de los efectos jurídicos producidos por actos jurídicos válidos realizados en el pasado, no debe resolverse frente al artículo 34 Constitucional, sino más bien como una posible lesión de la razonabilidad y proporcionalidad en la afectación de derechos por parte del legislador. Desde esta perspectiva, en el caso específico del transitorio IX de la Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros número 8653, se concluye que su contenido jurídico resulta razonable y proporcionado en cuanto resulta necesario para el cumplimiento de un fin constitucional perseguido por el legislador y además es el idóneo para el cumplimiento de tal fin.-\n\nPor tanto:\n\n Se admiten las coadyuvancias planteadas por las empresas \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" y \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" y se rechaza por extemporánea la interpuesta por la empresa \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" Se declara SIN LUGAR la acción planteada. Notifíquese. \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nGilbert Armijo S. \n\nPresidente a.i.\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n Luis Paulino Mora M. Ernesto Jinesta L. \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n Fernando Cruz C. Aracelly Pacheco S. \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n Doris Arias M. José Paulino Hernández G.\n\n \n\n \n\nEXPEDIENTE N° 09-002216-0007-CO \n\n \n\nTeléfonos: 2295-3696/2295-3697/2295-3698/2295-3700. Fax: 2295-3712. Dirección electrónica: www.poder-judicial.go.cr/salaconstitucional", "body_en_text": "*090022160007CO*\n\n**Case File:** 09-002216-0007-CO\n**Ruling No. 2010-09042**\n\n**CONSTITUTIONAL CHAMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE.** San José, at fourteen hours and thirty minutes on the nineteenth of May, two thousand ten.\n\nAn unconstitutionality action brought by Boris Molina Acevedo, holder of identity card number 1-696-764, and José Roberto Díaz André, of legal age, identity card number 1-617-689, in their capacity as representatives of the company PROFESIONALES EN SEGUROS DE COSTA RICA Sociedad Anónima, against Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros) number 8653. Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, participated in this proceeding in her capacity as Attorney General of the Republic, as well as the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima,\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" as coadjuvants.\n\n**Whereas:**\n\n1. By a brief received at the Secretariat of the Chamber at sixteen hundred hours on February sixteenth, two thousand nine, the petitioner requests that the unconstitutionality of Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros) number 8653 be declared, alleging that said norm expressly and specifically violates the principle of non-retroactivity of the law enshrined in Article 34 of the Political Constitution, insofar as it establishes an express order to the Public Registry (Registro Público) to eliminate or suppress, ex officio, the words \"seguros\" (insurance), \"reaseguros\" (reinsurance), \"aseguradora\" (insurer), and \"aseguramiento\" (underwriting) from any commercial company (sociedad mercantil) registered with that entity, all by virtue of what is provided in Article 29 subsection b) of Law number 8653 as a rule for companies that register after the entry into force of said law. In the petitioner's judgment, this generates a serious violation of the right enshrined in Article 34 of the Constitution because the petitioning company has been registered since nineteen ninety-five, such that the transitory norm comes to regulate completely consolidated legal situations to the benefit of our corporation (sociedad anónima), thereby injuring the vested rights (derechos adquiridos) of the shareholders of the petitioning company. It is affirmed that ruling number 2765-97 clearly establishes the conditions under which what constitutes a vested right and what we must understand as a consolidated legal situation should be understood, such that applying said doctrine to the case, one could say that Article 103 of the Commercial Code is the basis upon which a rule arose into legal life that connects a factual prerequisite—the right to establish a specific name identifying a commercial company—with a given consequence, that is, the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica\" registered in the Mercantile Registry. For this reason, the annulment of the indicated transitory article is requested.\n\n2. By resolution at eight hours twenty-five minutes on the eighteenth of February, two thousand nine, visible on folio 17 of the case file, the action was admitted, granting a hearing to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (Procuraduría General de la República).\n\n3. Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, in her capacity as the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, submitted her report, visible on folio twenty and following, and indicates that the first thing that must be clarified is that the substance of the claim is limited to the alleged infringement of Article 34 of the Political Constitution, so she will limit herself to expressing her legal opinion exclusively on that point. She adds that the first thing that must be defined is whether a vested right exists in the case of the corporate name (nombre o razón social) held by the petitioner. For the Attorney General's Office, the conclusion on this point is positive if we take into account that the majority doctrine indicates that the name of a company is an indispensable part of its individualization, and therefore a right exists for them which, according to the advisory body, derives from the American Convention on Human Rights, which indicates in its Article 2 the right of every person to recognition of their legal personality. On the other hand, and following this reasoning, the Attorney General's Office indicates that the truth is that the norm is not depriving a company of its name but rather obligating it to adjust a single word, which is \"seguros,\" and this by reason of a new reality created by the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercados de Seguros) itself, and which, by permitting an opening in said market, means that measures must be taken in favor of users, just as Article 46 of the Constitution itself requires. The question then, as explained, is whether that change violates Article 34 of the Constitution by harming a vested right or a consolidated legal situation; for the Attorney General's Office, the answer is no because the petitioner is not being stripped of anything from its patrimony. To support this answer, Legal Opinion 139-99 is cited, where it is clearly established that the concept of vested rights embodied in the Political Constitution is of a predominantly patrimonial nature. It is further added that in the very ruling cited by the appellant, the Chamber indicates that there is no right to the immutability of the legal system, such that in the judgment of the advisory body, the crux of the matter lies in determining whether the impact on the petitioner's right is in accordance with the law of the Constitution, that is, with its principles and its norms, to which the answer is yes, insofar as it complies with the principles that constitutional rights are not absolute and that the State may limit them provided it does so within a certain framework formed by formal and material conditions, as occurs in this case. For this reason, it requests that the action filed be rejected on the merits.\n\n4. Mr. Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, of legal age, divorced, Insurance Agent, with identity card number 1-585-874, appears in this case file in his capacity as General Proxy of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\" and indicates that he supports the arguments raised by the petitioner insofar as the situation of the company he represents is similar, as it has been operating under that name since nineteen ninety-seven. He adds that it is necessary to rebut the opinion of the Attorney General's Office because it lacks a clear approach, in that on one hand it affirms that what is modified is only one word, \"seguros,\" without realizing that it concerns, in essence, the activity to which they have been dedicated for many years, as they are precisely insurance agents. Furthermore, while the possibility of the legal system being modified is recognized, this must be done prospectively and not touch situations that already exist, and even less so when they have created subjective rights in favor of the administered parties that have entered the patrimonial sphere, as in the specific case, since the company name is what has allowed trust to be generated among the clients of these companies. For this reason, he requests that the action filed be granted.\n\n5. Carlos Francisco Mata Fonseca, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card number 3-201-748, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Rafael Vega Castillo, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card 1-364-999, legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, of legal age, married, insurance agent with identity card number 2-280-607, in his capacity as legal representative, together with the two previously cited, of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima,\" also appear in this proceeding and request to be considered coadjuvants because they have a legitimate interest insofar as they find themselves de facto and currently within the scenario contemplated by the norm under discussion. As to the merits, they indicate that, firstly, business freedom and the right to work are violated by obliging them to eliminate the word \"seguro\" from their name, because in our constitutional law, as it has been understood, the scope of these freedoms means the exercise of business activity freely as long as it is lawful, as well as the free operation and decision-making regarding the destiny of the company. This does not occur in this case, where the legislator, with its transitory provision, affects the commercial value that the corporate names (denominaciones sociales) possess, and it is not so simple to say that it concerns a single word because in this case the word is everything. The State cannot, by means of imposition, regulate the form of organization and operation of companies, and while in some cases public interests exist, the truth is that these have economic rights as their limits. It is also claimed that there is an impact on personal freedom, in the sense of being able to freely determine each person's conduct as long as their actions are lawful. This provision is contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, so it is clear that a company's ability to continue using the corporate name (denominación social) that was already registered before the law's entry into force is a vested right and a consolidated legal situation, such that, as long as it does not contravene Article 28, the action of the law is irrelevant. It must be clear that there is no impact on public morality, for it is true that the argument of consumer confusion is not truly accurate, and in fact, mechanisms exist that are equally appropriate. The same occurs with public order because the interests of the community are not benefited by the retroactive application that is ordered. For this reason, an infringement of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality is also claimed, since the challenged norm does not pass the aforementioned conditions, because firstly, the retroactive obligation is not necessary to protect the set of collective assets. Moreover, the alleged interest can be achieved by less harmful means, because the supposed goal pursued, of achieving non-confusion of consumers, can be achieved with less burdensome means. In reality, if one wishes to deceive the consumer, it will be done by other means and not only with the name. Regarding proportionality, it must be indicated that the harm caused is excessive in relation to the advantage supposedly obtained. Finally, the principle of non-retroactivity of the law is also violated, as the case is clear in that it concerns situations that are fully consolidated under the previous law and cannot be modified. For all these reasons, the declaration of unconstitutionality of the norm under discussion is requested.\n\n6. Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, of legal age, married, insurance agent, with identity card 1-295-635, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima,\" appears to request that he be considered a coadjuvant in favor of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the norm based on the same reasons set forth by the principal petitioner.\n\n7. The edicts referred to in the second paragraph of Article 81 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Law (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) were published in numbers 47, 48, and 49 of the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial), on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh of March, two thousand nine (folio 35).\n\n8. The hearing provided for in Articles 10 and 85 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Law (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) is dispensed with, based on the power granted to the Chamber by Article 9 of the same law, deeming this resolution sufficiently grounded in evident principles and norms, as well as in the jurisprudence of this Court.\n\n9. The prescriptions of law have been complied with in the proceedings.\n\nDrafted by Magistrate Mora Mora; and,\n\n**Considering:**\n\nI. Regarding the coadjuvancies filed. Within this process, coadjuvancy petitions have been filed by Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, in his capacity as General Proxy of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; by Carlos Francisco Mata Fonseca, as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; by Olman Rafael Vega Castillo, as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; by Olman Herrera Esquivel, in his capacity as representative of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\"; and by Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\". A ruling on such petitions was omitted at the corresponding procedural stage, so a decision must now be issued on these requests. Specifically, all the petitions are brought by parties legitimately interested in the outcome of the action filed, insofar as they are affected by the provision under discussion. On the other hand, regarding the fifteen-day period established in Article 83 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Law (Ley de Jurisdicción Constitucional) for the admission of these interventions, it is noted that this period began on March ninth, two thousand nine, with the first publication of the edict (folio 20), such that from the temporal standpoint, all the petitions are timely, except the one brought by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima,\" which filed its brief on May twenty-fifth, two thousand nine, many days after the expiration of the period granted by the recently cited norm. Based on the foregoing, it is appropriate to admit the coadjuvancy petitions filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima,\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima,\" while the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" must be rejected as extemporaneous.\n\nII. Regarding admissibility. This action is brought under the first paragraph of Article 75 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Law (Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional) to defend the rights and interests of the petitioner within the amparo action number 09-001767-0007-CO, which was admitted and is pending resolution by this Chamber, so that, having fulfilled this and the other formal and material requirements, it is appropriate to proceed to hear the claim on the merits.\n\nIII. Object of the challenge. The object of the unconstitutionality challenge through this process is Transitory Article I of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros), number 8653, the text of which is as follows:\n\n\"Transitory Provision IX.- Adjustment of corporate names (razones sociales) of corporations (sociedades anónimas).-\n\nIn accordance with the provisions of subsection b) of Article 29 of this Law, a period of six months is granted, counted from the entry into force of this Law, for corporations (sociedades anónimas) registered in the Public Registry (Registro Público) to adjust their corporate name (razón social). Once that period expires, the Public Registry (Registro Público), ex officio, shall eliminate the improper terms.\"\n\nIn the same vein, and because it is expressly mentioned in the transcribed article, it is relevant to cite the pertinent part of Article 29 of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros):\n\n\"Article 29.- Objectives and functions of the Superintendencia General de Seguros.-\n\nThe Superintendencia's purpose is to ensure the stability and efficient functioning of the insurance market, as well as to provide the broadest information to the insured. To this end, it shall authorize, regulate, and supervise the natural or legal persons that intervene in the acts or contracts related to the insurer (aseguradora) and reinsurer (reaseguradora) activity, the public offering, and the conducting of insurance business. In addition to the duties established in this Law, the superintendent shall be subject to the provisions of Article 156, as pertains to the conducting of insurer (aseguradora) activity, intermediation, public offering, or insurance business without authorization; Articles 129 and 131, except for subsections m), n), and ñ), all of the Organic Law of the Banco Central de Costa Rica, No. 7558, of November 3, 1995. They shall also be subject to the norms established in Articles 151, 152, 166, and 180 of the Securities Market Regulatory Law (Ley reguladora del mercado de valores), No. 7732, of December 17, 1997, and its amendments. Excepted from the foregoing are the disclosure of aggregated statistical information and the information provided for in this Law. Likewise, the provisions of Article 57 of Law No. 7523, Private Complementary Pensions Regime and amendments to the Securities Market Regulatory Law (Ley reguladora del mercado de valores) and the Commercial Code, of July 7, 1995, shall be applicable.\n\nAdditionally, the following functions shall correspond to it:\n\na) To authorize, suspend, cancel, and grant administrative licenses and authorizations, in accordance with this Law, to supervised subjects.\n\nb) To authorize the corporate bylaws and their modifications of insurer (aseguradora) entities, as well as the use in the corporate name (razón social) of the terms \"seguros\" (insurance), \"aseguradora\" (insurer), \"reaseguros\" (reinsurance), \"aseguramiento\" (underwriting), \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" (insurance agency company), and \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" (insurance brokerage company) or analogous terms that are intended to be registered in the Public Registry (Registro Público); the latter shall not process any registration of this type without the indicated authorization.\n\n(...)\"\n\nIV. The legal environment of the questioned norm. For a better understanding of the legal dispute raised in this case, it is important to note that the Transitory Provision under discussion, as well as Article 29 subsection b) that is mentioned, belong to the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros), number 8653, a regulation that is the product of a profound change in philosophy regarding insurance activity in Costa Rica. It involves the decision taken by the legislator to abandon the monopoly scheme under the charge of a state institution in the area of insurance and all its related activities, to opt for opening the market to private competition in such matters, with the State reserving the powers and authorities necessary for the exercise of strong control and regulatory work. The drafting of Articles 1 and 2 leaves no room for doubt regarding the scope and state mission indicated here and the activities over which that state supervision falls:\n\n\"Article 1.- Object of this Law.- This Law is of public order and interest and has the following objects:\n\na) To protect the subjective rights and legitimate interests of the insured and interested third parties that arise from the offering, subscription, commercialization, or execution of insurance contracts.\n\nb) To create and establish the framework for the authorization, regulation, supervision, and operation of the insurer (aseguradora) activity, reinsurer (reaseguradora) activity, insurance intermediation, and auxiliary services.\n\nArticle 2.- Insurer and reinsurer activity. The insurer (aseguradora) activity and the reinsurer (reaseguradora) activity may only be developed in the country by entities that have the respective administrative authorization issued by the Superintendencia General de Seguros, hereinafter Superintendencia, in accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of this Law.\n\nThe insurer (aseguradora) activity consists of accepting, in exchange for a premium, the transfer of insurable risks to which third persons are exposed, with the aim of dispersing among a collective the economic burden that their occurrence may generate. The insurer (aseguradora) entity that accepts this transfer contractually obligates itself, upon the occurrence of the risk, to indemnify the beneficiary of the coverage for the economic losses suffered or to compensate a capital amount, an income, or other agreed benefits.\n\nReinsurer (reaseguradora) activity is understood as that in which, based on a reinsurance contract and in exchange for a premium, a reinsurance entity accepts the cession of all or part of the risk assumed by an insurer (aseguradora) entity, by virtue of the underlying insurance contracts. To the extent applicable, the provisions established in the legislation for insurer (aseguradora) entities shall apply to reinsurance entities.\n\nAll natural or legal persons that participate, directly or indirectly, in the development or carry out in any form the insurer (aseguradora) activity, reinsurer (reaseguradora) activity, their intermediation, and auxiliary insurance services shall be subject to the scope of application of this Law.\n\nExcluded from the scope of this Law are the mandatory social security systems administered by the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), in accordance with the provisions of Article 73 of the Political Constitution, Article 2 of Law No. 17, of October 22, 1943, which creates the CCSS; the special pension regimes created by law; and the mandatory mutual policy administered by the Sociedad de Seguros de Vida del Magisterio Nacional, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 496 to 508 of the Education Code, Law No. 181, of August 18, 1944, and its amendments.\"\n\nIn that same sense and even more concretely in relation to the subject matter of this action, we find the provision in Article 19 of the cited law, which clearly sets forth the limits on intermediation activity in insurance, which is precisely the activity to which both the petitioners and the coadjuvants are dedicated:\n\n\"Article 19.- Insurance Intermediation.- The activity of insurance intermediation comprises the promotion, offering, and, in general, the acts directed toward the conclusion of an insurance contract, its renewal or modification, the execution of claim procedures, and the advice provided in relation to those contracts. Insurance intermediation does not include activities inherent to the insurer (aseguradora) or reinsurer (reaseguradora) activity.\n\nThe National Council shall develop, through regulations, the aspects related to intermediation activity that are established in this chapter, including matters related to the homologation of training programs for intermediaries, the granting of licenses to agents and brokers, the accreditation process for agents and insurance agency companies, the granting of administrative authorizations for brokerage companies, and the guarantees that the latter must meet.\n\nOnly duly authorized insurance intermediaries may carry out insurance intermediation in accordance with this Law. The following are considered insurance intermediaries: insurance agents, insurance agency companies, insurance brokerage companies, and the brokers of the latter. Insurance agency companies and insurance brokerage companies may only develop intermediation activity through insurance agents and brokers, respectively. In cases of cross-border trade in intermediation services and auxiliary insurance services, the provisions of Article 16 of this Law shall apply.\n\nThe Superintendencia shall request, administratively or judicially, that anyone who violates the provision of the preceding paragraph cease using the improperly employed expression. The competent judicial, administrative, or municipal authority may decree the closure of the business, in accordance with this Law or the business license law, if after the lapse of ten calendar days, counted from the respective notification, the violation has not ceased. The closure shall be maintained as long as the fault is not corrected.\n\nThe denominations \"insurance agent\" or \"insurance agency company\" and \"insurance broker\" or \"insurance brokerage company,\" and the equivalent terms in any language, are reserved for use solely by the persons and entities that, in accordance with this Law, hold the corresponding license and accreditation to commercialize insurance.\"\n\nIt is important to highlight a couple of paragraphs from the previous provision: the third paragraph, within which the necessity of having authorization from the respective authority to carry out insurance intermediation tasks is provided, understood as such those to which the petitioners and coadjuvants are dedicated, and the fifth paragraph, where the words and denominations cited therein are declared \"reserved.\" Said reservation is, as the law states, \"for use solely by the persons and entities that, in accordance with this law, hold the corresponding license and accreditation to commercialize insurance.\" Thus, with this legal framework, the commercial activity related to insurance in our country is reorganized—prospectively—and it is, of course, as a fundamental part of such regulation, that it is ordered that, in the newly implemented system, the terms \"insurance agent\" or \"insurance agency company\" and \"insurance broker\" or \"insurance brokerage company,\" and the equivalent terms in any language, are reserved and subject to control regarding their use, precisely as one more mechanism for regulating insurer (aseguradora) activity and in application of the necessary protection of consumers as provided in Article 46 of the Political Constitution. And likewise, it is within this reorganizing framework that the transitory provision under discussion is inserted, insofar as it clearly tends to make that reservation of the aforementioned terms a reality, as an act inherent to the control and regulation of insurance intermediation activity imposed by the law.\n\nV. Claim regarding injury to Article 34 of the Constitution. With the foregoing explanation, it becomes simpler to review the principal claim made by the petitioning company, which relates to Article 34 of the Political Constitution, since, as indicated, Transitory Provision IX constitutes a retroactive application of the law to the detriment of its vested rights (derechos adquiridos) and of legal situations consolidated in its favor. Its main argument is that for a long time and in accordance with the previously effective regulations, it registered a commercial company (sociedad mercantil) in the Public Registry (Registro Público) with the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima,\" that is, a name that contains the word \"seguros,\" and now, long after the registration and operating validly in the market, the new law, through the transitory provision under discussion, seeks to strip it of that name, without any constitutional support for such action. In this regard, the first thing that must be kept in mind is that Article 34 of the Constitution states:\n\n\"Article 34.- No law shall be given retroactive effect to the detriment of any person, or of their vested rights (derechos adquiridos) or of consolidated legal situations.\"\n\nThus, to resolve the petitioner's argument, the notion of the retroactive effect of the law, embodied in the first part of the cited constitutional provision, must be studied first, because it precisely establishes the action that is prohibited when the conditions contained in the rest of the text are present, that is, detriment to a person, existence of vested rights (derechos adquiridos), or finding of a consolidated legal situation. Such an understanding of the indicated concept and the action it describes must start from the fact that the norm is that legal provisions are enacted to regulate factual situations or events that occur within the period of their validity, leaving outside their scope and their regulations both events that occurred in the past with respect to the law (i.e., before its entry into force), as well as those that occur after the norm's repeal (i.e., after its loss of validity). In contrast, in cases of retroactivity of the law, that usual situation of the validity of norms is abandoned because in a retroactive norm, its entire legal structure and its link with reality moves backward in time. In such a way, first, the factual prerequisite moves backward in time, since it describes specific situations and events whose emergence into reality occurred at a moment prior to the norm's entry into force; but also—secondly—the legal consequences that the norm imposes on such events are likewise retroacted because they are intended to become valid and effective from a date or moment prior to the law's entry into force.\n\nIt is therefore a matter of retroactively applying the time of certain legal norms (both the factual premise and the legal consequence) so that they exercise their regulatory legal power by taking facts and attaching legal consequences to them, both of which are located in the past relative to the entry into force of the norm itself. From this perspective, the explanation set forth in the preceding recital regarding the legislator's actions in enacting the law, as well as the reading of both Article 29(b) and the contested Transitory Provision IX, reveal the absence of any intention to change the legal consequences assigned in the past to facts or situations that had already occurred before its effective date. On the contrary, the law in general and the contested transitory provision in particular have as their factual premise, that is to say, events whose existence, should they occur, will materialize after the provision enters into force, namely: the persistence, after the law takes effect, of trade names or corporate names whose denomination includes any of the reserved words. Likewise, the legal consequences assigned to said premise are also valid only for the future, since all legal effects materialized before the law's entry into force remain intact. In other words, the contested norm, in accordance with the meaning of the entire law, seeks to regulate the issue of the use of certain terms in company names \"from now on,\" that is, purely within its scope of validity, since it is stated that, \"...a period of six months counted from the entry into force of this Law is granted for corporations (sociedades anónimas) registered in the Public Registry to adjust their corporate name. After that period, the Public Registry, ex officio, shall eliminate the improper terms.\" Thus, the norm clearly does not reach into the past to regulate facts that occurred and situations that arose before its entry into force, as would be the case, for example, by annulling the acts of registration of the respective corporate names from the moment they were carried out, or by modifying the legal effects attributed at the time to the facts and acts performed on dates prior to the law's entry into force. On the contrary, what it orders is that the passive subjects who find themselves within the factual premise of the transitory norm from its entry into force—that is, those who, after the law takes effect, hold corporate names that include the words \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" \"sociedad corredora de seguros,\" or analogous terms—must carry out—in the future—a certain conduct defined therein in the transitory provision; all of which seeks to ensure that the persons adjust \"from now on\" their legal situation to the provisions of the law. Consequently, if the norm does not reach into the past, then it is meaningless to inquire about the possible existence of harm to any person, or about acquired rights or consolidated legal situations under Article 34, given that this would be necessary to validate or invalidate the legal intervention of the law in a time prior to its entry into force, which—as explained—is not the case here.\n\nVI.- The foregoing analysis, while sufficient to dismiss the claim of violation of Article 34 of the Constitution, nevertheless requires clarification of an aspect that has been raised by the claimants and which consists of understanding that the recently cited constitutional article would also include what the doctrine calls \"weak retroactivity,\" a concept that has been used to designate protection against attempts to modify—no longer through a normative return to the past, but also towards the future—the type and scope of the legal effects that have as their cause and are derived from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations materialized in the past. Understood in this way, it would be a kind of \"encapsulation\" of legal relationships created at a specific moment in time, thanks to which the legal consequences and legal effects understood as derived from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations would be maintained, such that said legal effects become unmodifiable (to one's detriment) and must be respected by legal operators, including judges and the legislator. In the case of the claimants, this thesis is concretized in their claim that the \"acquired rights\" originating in their favor with the legally performed registration in the past of a corporate name that includes the word \"seguros\" be maintained forever, even though the legislator has decided—from now on—to profoundly modify the rules of the game for insurance activity and to legally reserve that term and other similar ones, setting—as of the law's effective date—new legal conditions for its lawful use by private individuals. For this Court, this thesis is legally unsustainable, not only for the reason already pointed out by the doctrine itself, which notes the inadvisability of such freezing insofar as it can translate into a paralysis of the general will related to the advancement of the legal order and an obstacle to remedying unjust situations, but also—in addition—for two other important reasons, namely: first, because it overlooks the fact that every legal order, studied and observed at a specific moment in time, presents itself to us as the product and interaction of a broad set of legal effects in progress and being realized at that moment, all as a normal part of the development of innumerable rights acquired previously. Therefore, the enactment of any legal norm, at any time, always and in some way comes to alter such legal effects generated by prior legal norms that—in a great many cases—are the source of acquired rights that must be respected. In other words, the set of rights and obligations that correspond to a person specifically at a moment in time, according to the legal order, necessarily presents itself as the result of the effects and legal consequences originated by the respective legal norms that recognized and attributed them, so any subsequent and harmful modification would be unconstitutional according to this line of reasoning. Thus, and just to mention two representative examples, this line of reasoning would lead us to legally reject the existence and possibility of the revocation of administrative acts whose objective is precisely to deprive certain perfectly valid acts that create subjective rights of their legal effects in the future; or—similarly—one would have to legally deny the possibility of introducing limitations of social interest to the exercise of property rights, because such an act undoubtedly harms property owners regarding the scope and modality of the exercise of the property right that was established—and immobilized—in their favor when they acquired their right in the past and under the protection of the law. Secondly, this way of reasoning, in addition to being legally deficient, is also unnecessary for achieving the protection of the citizen against the arbitrary, unjust, and \"forward-looking\" modification of legal effects derived from acquired rights or consolidated legal situations, because although historically, at some point, it could have been justified in those legal systems where the legislator practically lacked means of constitutional control regarding its sphere of action and degree of interference in people's rights, the truth is that today it makes no sense to distort the concept of retroactivity to achieve the defense of the governed if, rather, as a result of the evolution of constitutionalism in recent decades, appropriate legal instruments have been coined and put into practice for the review of the constitutional correctness of actions by public authorities concerning what constitutes an affectation of citizens' rights. Specifically, it is common in the Constitutional Courts of our legal sphere, and of course also in this Chamber, to use the notions of \"reasonableness and proportionality,\" whose purpose is precisely to serve as instruments to judge legal norms and legislative activity in order to ensure that the restriction and limitation of fundamental rights is carried out within the framework permitted by the Political Constitution. It is for this reason that—as correctly raised in the joinders—the possible constitutional infringement due to the future modification of the legal effects derived from an acquired right does not lie in Article 34 of the Constitution because technically there is no retroactivity to analyze, but rather the injury—if it exists—would be located as an infringement of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality that constitutional jurisprudence has indicated must be necessarily observed in legislative production. It is to this analysis and study that one must proceed for the determination of constitutional infringements in the contested Transitory Provision, and this is done in the following recitals.\n\nVII.- Claim of infringement of the constitutional principles of reasonableness and proportionality. In order to verify the recently cited reasonableness and proportionality of the contested Transitory Provision, it must first be noted that fundamental rights, including the freedoms of commerce and labor cited by the coadjuvants, are conceived—both doctrinally and in the consistent jurisprudence of this Chamber—as susceptible to being limited when constitutionally appropriate motives exist for doing so. In the case of the intermediation activity in the insurance business, which is what concerns the claimants, a state decision is confirmed, taken through constitutionally established means, aimed at reorganizing insurance activity and its related activities, a decision that includes the imposition of compliance with certain conditions for the exercise of intermediation in insurance matters, as derived from the articles of the law. The claimants argue that the measures taken regarding restricting the use of certain expressions and words constitute an intrusion into business activity, which is only permitted in the case of protecting morals, public order, or the rights of third parties. However, for this Court, that is precisely the case, where the legislator, under the protection of such premises contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, has chosen to open the insurance market to private participation, under specific conditions clearly defined in the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 and specifically in Articles 1 (Purpose of this Law); 2 (Insurance and reinsurance activity); and particularly Article 19 (insurance intermediation) in its third and fifth paragraphs. All of them (already transcribed verbatim in the fourth recital of this ruling) together with the rest of the law, seek to maintain appropriate control and behavior in a relevant sphere of economic activity and to achieve compliance with the notion of constitutional public order through the appropriate development of society, as well as the preservation of the rights of third parties, reasons that then justify such limitations against the fundamental rights to freedom in general and to the freedom of enterprise that are claimed to be affected.\n\nVIII.- However, what was stated in the immediately preceding recital regarding the legislator's ability to impose limitations on the exercise of fundamental rights cannot mean—as this Court has also had the opportunity to state previously—that any limitation the legislator decides to impose on the exercise of fundamental rights is valid simply because it can be demonstrated to serve other constitutionally relevant purposes. Rather, as has already been clearly established, it is also required that such measures be reasonable and proportional, taking into account both the limitation imposed on the fundamental right and the benefit achieved in relation to the attainment of another or other constitutional objectives. On this topic, it has been stated that:\n\n\"It should be noted that, in principle, it is not sufficient that measures implying a disturbance of the individual's freedom have been established by formal law for those measures to be constitutionally justified. Indeed, not everything that is legal is constitutionally valid. So, to determine their justification or constitutional validity, it is imperative to weigh whether the social circumstances that motivated the legislator to enact a specific law are proportional to the ends pursued with it and the means chosen to achieve them. Thus, the Constitution provides the legislator with certain normative contents enunciated by it, contents that allow the legislator to create the rest of the legal norm for each case on a technical basis that must be rational. That is, based on a scientific basis. By virtue of this scientific basis, the legislator must choose the content of the law—means—to achieve certain ends socially deemed necessary. This legal reasonableness appears when the factual premise of the norm is balanced with the consequences, obligations, duties, or powers that it imposes on its addressees. In this matter, the guarantee of due process translates, beyond its purely procedural denotation, into a requirement of reasonableness of state actions—laws, administrative acts, and judgments—and the law being one of them, each time the legislator issues an act of this type in accordance with the Constitution, a valuation of reasonableness must be carried out—according to the general standard of constitutional principles and norms—to determine the aforementioned proportion. In summary, the guarantee of due process in relation to the law is the constitutional requirement that laws must be reasonable, that is, they must contain an equivalence between the premise of the norm and the consequences they establish for said premise, taking into account the social circumstances that motivated it, the ends pursued by it, and the means chosen by the legislator to achieve them...\" (Judgment number 1995-3929)\n\nThese concepts have been reinforced over time, and thus, for example, in Judgments 1998-4812 and 2001-11543, the following was respectively stated:\n\n\"As the Chamber has also said, apart from formal requirements—of production—a norm must comply with others, of substance, which together with the former, allow us to establish its validity, and regarding these latter ones, that of reasonableness is transcendental, understood as an appropriate adequacy between the means provided by the norm to achieve the ends, with particular analysis of the adequacy of the means provided by the norm and the ideology of the Constitution and the rights and freedoms contemplated by it. If the means are contrary to those rights or freedoms, in themselves or by their effects, we will be facing an absence of reasonableness, and in the case of the contested norms, the Chamber finds that this absence exists.\" (Judgment 1998-4812)\n\n\"...That is, a norm or a public or private act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably grounded and justified in accordance with constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law is not irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or the adequacy to the Constitution, in general, and especially to the rights and freedoms recognized or presupposed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in the life of society... (T)o determine if the norm effectively transgressed substantive due process (reasonableness) and if, therefore, it is unconstitutional, what is appropriate is to analyze whether the provision is subordinate to the Political Constitution, adapts its precepts to the objectives it seeks to achieve, and provides equitable solutions with a minimum of Justice.\" (Judgment 2001-11543)\n\nIt is concluded from the jurisprudence just set forth that reasonableness forms an integral part of constitutional control in order to ensure that laws do not result in an arbitrary and senseless exercise of public power, but rather respond to real needs and motivations. However, as the Chamber also stated in Ruling number 2008-18575 of fourteen hours fifty-five minutes on December seventeenth, two thousand eight:\n\n\"... (T)his Court is not unaware of the fundamental fact that in this specific topic of how to respond to the needs and demands of life in society, there is no such thing as 'the best solution' or 'the correct solution' that can be said to be purely 'better' or 'superior' to the others. On the contrary, in this particular topic, it is necessary to start from a fundamental premise, which is that what is normal is the existence of a more or less broad set of options that may, at a given moment, be reasonable and adequate for achieving the purpose being pursued. Likewise, we are also not unaware of the fact that in the exercise of this balance of elements that influence decision-making, countless elements of judgment may come into play, all depending on the depth and scope with which one wishes to address the question of what are the adequate means for the pursued ends. The foregoing is even clearer in the case of Constitutional Law, where the existence of ends of the same rank that interact with each other is also normal. Therefore, the concept of reasonableness as a parameter of constitutionality has been approached and understood under the figure of a framework that delimits a variety of actions that can all be understood as reasonable, so that only those acts that fall outside of it must be considered unreasonable and, therefore, unconstitutional. On this particular point, the Chamber has expressed the following, precisely when analyzing an Executive Decree:\n\n'In reality, an alleged excess committed by the Executive Branch is being discussed, in the concrete exercise of its functions of regulation and control of commerce, and at heart, what the claimant demands is the inadequacy and unnecessary nature of the cited Decree. On this last topic, the Chamber has had the opportunity to rule as follows:\n\n\"Regarding the constitutional principle of reasonableness, which the claimant alleges as violated, it refers, as stated in judgment number 1739-92, of eleven hours forty-five minutes on July first, nineteen ninety-two: '... a norm or a public or private act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably grounded and justified in accordance with constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law is not irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or the adequacy to the Constitution in general, and especially to the rights and freedoms recognized or presupposed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in life in society.' This principle does not refer, as the claimant interprets it, to the analysis of purely technical criteria, which are unrelated to rights and freedoms recognized in the Political Constitution. If the claimant considers that the criteria applied in the norms being questioned are erroneous, they may promote the relevant legal reforms, but not seek, through an unconstitutionality action, for said reforms to be carried out\" (Judgment number 1550-95 of fifteen hours fifty-one minutes on March twenty-first, nineteen ninety-five).\"\n\nFurthermore, it has been clearly expressed that the competence of this Court is limited to excluding totally unreasonable acts from the legal system, but not to substitute for nor to judge public authorities in the weighing of the elements that may make one option more adequate than another:\n\n\"... it should be warned that, strictly speaking, reasonableness is equivalent to justice, thus, for example, a law that establishes scientifically or technically nonsensical obligations would be a technically irrational or unreasonable law, and therefore, it would also be legally unreasonable. In this sense, it should be noted that it is not the same to say that an act is reasonable, as to say that an act is not unreasonable, because reasonableness is a point within a range of possibilities or options, having an upper and a lower limit, outside of which the choice is unreasonable, due to excess or defect, respectively...\" (00486-94 of sixteen hours three minutes on January twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-four).\"\n\nIX.- Based on the concepts and considerations above, it can be concluded that the limitation imposed by both Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 and, in general, the remaining articles of the law regarding the use of certain terms such as \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" and \"sociedad corredora de seguros,\" or analogous terms in the bylaws of insurance entities and their modifications, as well as in the corporate name of the interested legal entities, does not suffer from the defects of lack of reasonableness and proportionality attributed to them. Indeed, as explained in the aforementioned fourth recital, the legislator made a profound change in the economic sector corresponding to insurance activity and its related tasks, moving from a state monopoly to a system of regulated activity. Likewise, and as also indicated, as part of this new model, a strong regulatory imprint is appreciated that should allow the State, through the competent bodies, to effectively ensure the transparency and correctness of the different actors in this new sector of economic activity. Thus, it is perfectly understandable that as part of this model, and as a derivation of the need for surveillance and control for its adequate functioning for the benefit of consumers, the legislator considered it legally necessary to establish in the law a strong limitation on the use of expressions related to the activity, such as the denominations \"insurance agent (agente de seguros)\" or \"insurance agency company (sociedad agencia de seguros)\" and \"insurance broker (corredor de seguros)\" or \"insurance brokerage company (sociedad corredora de seguros)\" and other equivalent terms mentioned in Article 19 of the legal text. And adding even more to this reasonableness and proportionality is the fact that such limitation does not result in an absolute prohibition of use, as seems to be raised by the appellant, but rather it is clear from the transcribed legal texts not only that the terms may be used by those who meet the necessary requirements to present themselves to the public as intermediaries in insurance activity, but also that the claimants themselves could and can—if they meet the necessary legal conditions—maintain the use of the restricted-use terms in their corporate names. Finally, and along the same line, it is equally reasonable that the legislator carries through to its conclusion its decision to restrict the use of terms related to intermediation activity in the insurance market and prohibits their use by anyone who is not one of the subjects subjected to control and authorization by the competent bodies; it would make no sense and would be a clear source of confusion for the interested persons and the consuming public if, as requested by the appellants and coadjuvants, the possibility were legally maintained that terms related to insurance intermediation could be used, exploited, and advertised by persons and companies that do not have authorization for that activity because they have not met the necessary requirements to carry it out. This would undoubtedly be completely detrimental to the purposes pursued by the law and even harmful to the constitutional rights of consumers, who have the right to receive protection \"in their safety and economic interests\" and to \"receive adequate and truthful information\" and \"equitable treatment,\" as stated in Article 46 of the Constitution. For the reasons stated, the Chamber considers that the establishment of a restriction on the use of terms related to insurance activity in the text of the contested law, as well as its consequence contained in the ninth transitory provision, consisting of the adjustment \"from now on\" of the conditions for their valid use by interested parties, proves to be a measure adjusted to the constitutional parameters of reasonableness and proportionality, so the action must be declared without merit.\n\nX.- Conclusion. Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 does not infringe Article 34 of the Political Constitution, firstly because it does not legislate retroactively, but rather prospectively, insofar as it regulates the future situation of corporate names that include the reserved terms defined in Article 29 of the cited law. Likewise, the claim for the alteration by the contested transitory provision of the legal effects produced by valid legal acts performed in the past should not be resolved against Article 34 of the Constitution, but rather as a possible violation of reasonableness and proportionality in the affectation of rights by the legislator. From this perspective, in the specific case of Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653, it is concluded that its legal content is reasonable and proportional insofar as it is necessary for the fulfillment of a constitutional purpose pursued by the legislator and is, moreover, suitable for the fulfillment of said purpose.\n\nTherefore:\n\nThe joinders filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" are admitted, and the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" is rejected as untimely. The filed action is declared WITHOUT MERIT. Let it be notified.\n\nGilbert Armijo S.\n\nPresidente a.i.\n\nLuis Paulino Mora M. Ernesto Jinesta L.\n\nFernando Cruz C. Aracelly Pacheco S.\n\nDoris Arias M. José Paulino Hernández G.\n\nEXPEDIENTE N° 09-002216-0007-CO\n\nTeléfonos: 2295-3696/2295-3697/2295-3698/2295-3700. Fax: 2295-3712.\n\nElectronic address: www.poder-judicial.go.cr/salaconstitucional\n\n*090022160007CO*\n\n**Exp: 09-002216-0007-CO**\n\n**Res. Nº 2010-09042**\n\n**CONSTITUTIONAL CHAMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE. San José, at fourteen hours thirty minutes on the nineteenth of May, two thousand ten.-**\n\nAction of unconstitutionality brought by Boris Molina Acevedo, bearer of identity card number 1-696-764, and José Roberto Díaz André, of legal age, identity card 1-617-689, in their capacity as representatives of the company PROFESIONALES EN SEGUROS DE COSTA RICA Sociedad Anónima, against Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros) number 8653.- Participating in this process were Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, in her capacity as Attorney General of the Republic (Procuradora General de la República), as well as the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" as coadjuvants.-\n\n.**Whereas (Resultando):**\n\n**1.-** By brief received at the Secretariat of the Chamber at sixteen hours thirty minutes on the sixteenth of February, two thousand nine, the petitioner requests that the unconstitutionality of Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 be declared, as they allege that said provision expressly violates the principle of non-retroactivity of the law enshrined in Article 34 of the Political Constitution, insofar as it establishes an express order to the Public Registry to ex officio eliminate or suppress the words \"seguros,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" and \"aseguramiento\" from any commercial company registered in that entity, all by virtue of Article 29, subsection b) of Law number 8653 so providing as a rule for companies registered after the entry into force of that law.- This, in the petitioner's judgment, generates a serious injury to the right enshrined in Article 34 of the Constitution, since the petitioning company has been registered since nineteen ninety-five, meaning that the transitory provision comes to regulate completely consolidated legal situations to the benefit of our sociedad anónima, thereby harming the acquired rights of the petitioning company's partners.- It is affirmed that judgment number 2765-97 clearly establishes the conditions under which what constitutes an acquired right and what we must understand as a consolidated legal situation should be understood, so that applying said doctrine to the case, it could be said that Article 103 of the Commercial Code is the basis upon which a rule emerged into legal existence that connects a factual premise—the right to establish a specific name that identifies a commercial company—with a given consequence, that is, the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica\" registered in the Commercial Registry. Therefore, the annulment of the indicated transitory article is requested.-\n\n**2.-** By resolution of eight twenty-five hours on the eighteenth of February, two thousand nine, visible on folio 17 of the case file, the action was given course, granting a hearing to the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República).-\n\n**3.-** Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, in her capacity as Attorney General of the Republic, rendered her report visible on folios twenty and following, noting that the first thing to clarify is that the substance of the claim is limited to the alleged infringement of Article 34 of the Political Constitution, so she will limit herself to expressing her legal opinion exclusively on that point. She adds that the first thing to define is whether an acquired right exists in the case of the corporate name or business name held by the petitioner. For the Attorney General's Office, the conclusion on this point is positive if we consider that the majority doctrine indicates that a company's name forms an indispensable part of its individualization and, therefore, a right exists for them which, according to the advisory body, derives from the American Convention on Human Rights, which states in its Article 2 the right of every person to recognition of their legal personality. On the other hand, following that reasoning, the Attorney General's Office notes that the truth is that the provision is not depriving a company of its name but rather obliging it to adjust it with respect to one word, which is \"seguros,\" and this by reason of a new reality created by the Insurance Market Regulatory Law itself and which, by permitting an opening in said market, makes it necessary to take measures in favor of users as required by Article 46 of the Constitution itself. The question then, as explained, is whether that change violates Article 34 of the Constitution by harming an acquired right or a consolidated legal situation; for the Attorney General's Office, the answer is negative because nothing is being removed from the petitioner's patrimony. To support this answer, Legal Opinion 139-99 is cited, where it is clearly established that the concept of acquired rights enshrined in the Political Constitution is of a predominantly patrimonial nature. It is further added that in the very judgment cited by the appellant, the Chamber notes that there is no right to the immutability of the legal system, so that in the opinion of the advisory body, the crux of the matter lies in determining whether the impact on the petitioner's right is in accordance with the law of the Constitution, that is, with its principles and norms, to which the answer is yes, insofar as the principles that constitutional rights are not absolute and that the State may limit them provided it does so within a certain framework consisting of formal and material conditions are fulfilled, as occurs in this case. Therefore, it requests that the action brought be rejected on the merits.\n\n**4.-** Mr. Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández.\n\n..., of legal age, divorced, Insurance Agent, with identity card number 1-585-874, appears in this case file in his capacity as General Attorney-in-Fact of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\" and states that he supports the arguments made by the plaintiff, as the situation of the company he represents is similar in that it has been operating under that name since nineteen ninety-seven.- He adds that it is necessary to refute the opinion of the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría), because it lacks a clear approach in that, on the one hand, it affirms that only one word, \"seguros,\" is being modified, without realizing that what is fundamentally at issue is the activity they have been engaged in for many years, as they are precisely insurance agents.- Furthermore, while the possibility of modifying the legal system is recognized, this must be done prospectively, without touching upon situations that already exist, and even less so when they have created subjective rights in favor of the regulated parties that have entered their patrimonial sphere, as in the specific case, since the corporate name is what has allowed these companies to generate trust among their clients.- For this reason, he requests that the action filed be granted.-\n\n5.- Carlos Francisco Mata Fonseca, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card number 3-201-748, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", Olman Rafael Vega Castillo, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card 1-364-999, legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, of legal age, married, insurance agent with identity card number 2-280-607, in his capacity as legal representative, together with the two previously mentioned, of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\", also appear in this proceeding and request to be considered as coadjuvants (coadyuvantes) because they have a legitimate interest, as they currently and in fact fall under the situation contemplated by the rule under discussion.- On the merits, they state that, firstly, business freedom and the right to work are violated by obliging them to eliminate the word \"seguro\" from their corporate name, given that in our constitutional law, as it has been understood, the scope of these freedoms means the free exercise of business activity as long as it is lawful, as well as the free operation and decision-making regarding the company's direction. This is not the case here, where the legislator, through this transitional provision, affects the commercial value that corporate names have, and it is not so simple to say that it is only one word because, in this case, the word is everything. The State cannot, through imposition, regulate the form of organization and the operation of companies, and although public interests exist in some cases, the truth is that these have economic rights as limits.- They also claim an impairment of personal freedom, in the sense of being able to freely determine one's own conduct as long as its performance is lawful. This provision is contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, so it is clear that a company's possibility to continue using a corporate name that was already registered before the law came into effect is a vested right and a consolidated legal situation, so that, as long as it does not contravene Article 28, it is beyond the action of the law.- It must be clear that there is no impairment of public morality, as the truth is that the argument of consumer confusion is not really true, and in fact, there are mechanisms that are equally appropriate.- The same happens with public order because the community's interests are not benefited by the retroactive application that is ordered. For this reason, they also claim an infringement of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, since the challenged rule does not meet the aforementioned conditions; firstly, because the retroactive obligation is not necessary to protect the community's assets. Additionally, the supposed interest can be achieved by less harmful means, since the supposed goal of avoiding consumer confusion can be achieved with less burdensome means. In reality, if one wants to deceive the consumer, it will be done by other means and not just with the name.- Regarding proportionality, it must be stated that the harm caused is excessive compared to the advantage supposedly obtained.- Finally, the principle of non-retroactivity of the law is also violated, as the case is clear in that these are situations that are fully consolidated under the previous law and cannot be modified.- For all these reasons, the declaration of unconstitutionality of the rule under discussion is requested.-\n\n6.- Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, of legal age, married, insurance agent, with identity card 1-295-635, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\", appears to request to be considered as a coadjuvant in favor of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the rule, based on the same reasons set forth by the main plaintiff.\n\n7.- The edicts referred to in the second paragraph of Article 81 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction were published in numbers 47, 48, and 49 of the Judicial Bulletin (Boletín Judicial), on March ninth, tenth, and eleventh, two thousand nine. (folio 35).\n\n8.- The hearing indicated in Articles 10 and 85 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction is dispensed with, based on the power granted to the Chamber by Article 9 of that same law, as this resolution is deemed sufficiently founded on evident principles and norms, as well as on the jurisprudence of this Court.\n\n9.- The procedures have been carried out in accordance with the prescriptions of law.\n\nJudge Mora Mora writes; and,\n\nConsidering:\n\nI.- On the coadjuvancy briefs presented. Within this proceeding, coadjuvancy briefs have been presented by Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, in his capacity as General Attorney-in-Fact of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\", as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, in his capacity as representative of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\", and Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\". The resolution of these petitions was omitted at the corresponding procedural opportunity, so a decision on such petitions must now be issued. Specifically, all the petitions are filed by interested parties with a legitimate interest in the outcome of the action filed, as they are affected by the provision under discussion. On the other hand, regarding the fifteen-day term established in Article 83 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction for the admission of these interventions, it is noted that this term began on March ninth, two thousand nine, with the first publication of the edict (folio 20), so that, from a temporal standpoint, all the petitions are timely, except the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima,\" which presented its brief on May twenty-fifth, two thousand nine, many days after the expiration of the term granted by the recently cited rule. Based on the foregoing, it is appropriate to admit the coadjuvancy briefs filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\", while the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" must be rejected as untimely (extemporánea).\n\nII.- On admissibility. This action is filed under the terms of the first paragraph of Article 75 of the Law of Constitutional Jurisdiction to defend the rights and interests of the plaintiff within the amparo (recurso de amparo) case number 09-001767-0007-CO, which was given course and is pending resolution by this Chamber, so that, having fulfilled this and the other formal and material requirements, it is proper to proceed to hear the claim on the merits.-\n\nIII.- Object of the challenge. The object of the unconstitutionality challenge through this proceeding is Transitory Article I of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros), number 8653, the text of which is as follows:\n\n\"Transitorio IX.- Adjustment of corporate names of corporations (sociedades anónimas).-\nIn accordance with the provisions of subsection b) of Article 29 of this Law, a period of six months is granted, counted from the entry into force of this Law, for corporations (sociedades anónimas) registered in the Public Registry to adjust their corporate name (razón social). Once this period has expired, the Public Registry, ex officio, will eliminate the improper terms.\"\n\nSimilarly, and as it is expressly mentioned in the transcribed article, it is relevant to cite, in the pertinent part, Article 29 of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law:\n\n\"Article 29.- Objectives and functions of the General Superintendence of Insurance (Superintendencia General de Seguros).-\nThe Superintendence has the objective of ensuring the stability and efficient functioning of the insurance market, as well as providing the broadest information to the insured. For this purpose, it shall authorize, regulate, and supervise the natural or legal persons that intervene in acts or contracts related to the insurance and reinsurance activity, the public offering, and the conduct of insurance business. In addition to the duties established in this Law, the superintendent shall be subject to the provisions of Article 156, regarding the performance of insurance activity, intermediation, public offering, or insurance business without authorization; Articles 129 and 131, with the exception of subparagraphs m), n) and ñ), all of the Organic Law of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, No. 7558, of November 3, 1995. The rules established in Articles 151, 152, 166 and 180 of the Securities Market Regulatory Law (Ley reguladora del mercado de valores), No. 7732, of December 17, 1997, and its amendments, shall also be applicable. Excepted from the foregoing are the disclosure of aggregated statistical information and the information set forth in this Law. Likewise, the provisions of Article 57 of Law No. 7523, Private Supplementary Pensions Regime and amendments to the Securities Market Regulatory Law and the Commerce Code, of July 7, 1995, shall be applicable.\n\nAdditionally, it shall have the following functions:\na) Authorize, suspend, cancel, and grant administrative licenses and authorizations, in accordance with this Law, to the supervised subjects.\nb) Authorize the corporate charters and their amendments of insurance entities, as well as the use in the corporate name (razón social) of the terms \"seguros\", \"aseguradora\", \"reaseguros\", \"aseguramiento\", \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" or analogous terms intended to be registered in the Public Registry; the latter shall not process any such registration without the indicated authorization.\n(...)\"\n\nIV.- The legal environment of the challenged rule.- For a better understanding of the legal dispute raised in this case, it is important to note that the Transitory provision under discussion, as well as Article 29, subsection b) that is mentioned, belong to the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros), number 8653, a regulation that is the product of a profound change in philosophy regarding the insurance activity in Costa Rica. It involves the decision taken by the legislator to abandon the monopoly scheme, under the charge of a state institution, regarding insurance and all its related activities, in favor of opening the market to private competition in these matters, with the State reserving the necessary competences and powers to exercise a strong control and regulatory function. The wording of Articles 1 and 2 leaves no doubt regarding the scope and state mission herein indicated and the activities over which this state supervision is exercised.-\n\n\"Article 1.- Object of this Law.- This Law is of public order and interest and its object is to:\na) Protect the subjective rights and legitimate interests of the insured and interested third parties arising from the offer, subscription, commercialization, or execution of insurance contracts.\nb) Create and establish the framework for the authorization, regulation, supervision, and functioning of the insurance, reinsurance, insurance intermediation, and auxiliary services activity.\n\nArticle 2.- Insurance and reinsurance activity The insurance activity and the reinsurance activity may only be developed in the country by entities that have the respective administrative authorization issued by the General Superintendence of Insurance (Superintendencia General de Seguros), hereinafter Superintendence, in accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of this Law.\nThe insurance activity consists of accepting, in exchange for a premium, the transfer of insurable risks to which third parties are exposed, with the purpose of dispersing within a collective the economic burden that their occurrence may generate. The insurance entity that accepts this transfer is contractually obliged, upon the occurrence of the risk, to indemnify the coverage beneficiary for the economic losses suffered or to compensate a capital sum, an income, or other agreed-upon benefits.\nReinsurance activity is understood as that in which, based on a reinsurance contract and in exchange for a premium, a reinsurance entity accepts the cession of all or part of the risk assumed by an insurance entity, by virtue of the underlying insurance contracts. To the extent applicable, reinsurance entities shall be subject to the provisions established in the legislation for insurance entities.\nAll natural or legal persons who participate, directly or indirectly, in the development of, or in any way perform, the insurance activity, reinsurance activity, their intermediation, and auxiliary insurance services, shall be subject to the scope of application of this Law.\nThe mandatory social security systems administered by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, CCSS) are excluded from the scope of this Law, in accordance with the provisions of Article 73 of the Political Constitution, Article 2 of Law No. 17, of October 22, 1943, which creates the CCSS; the special pension regimes created by law, and the mandatory mutual policy administered by the National Teachers' Life Insurance Society (Sociedad de Seguros de Vida del Magisterio Nacional), in accordance with the provisions of Articles 496 to 508 of the Education Code, Law No. 181, of August 18, 1944, and its amendments.\"\n\nIn that same sense, and even more specifically in relation to the subject of this action, we find the provisions of Article 19 of the cited law, which clearly sets forth the limits on the insurance intermediation activity, which is precisely the activity the plaintiffs and coadjuvants are engaged in:\n\n\"Article 19.- Insurance Intermediation.- The insurance intermediation activity comprises the promotion, offer, and, in general, the acts aimed at the conclusion of an insurance contract, its renewal or modification, the execution of claim procedures, and the advisory services provided in relation to those contracts. Insurance intermediation does not include activities inherent to the insurance or reinsurance activity.\nThe National Council (Consejo Nacional) shall develop, through regulations, the aspects related to the intermediation activity established in this chapter, including matters related to the homologation of intermediary training programs, the granting of licenses to agents and brokers, the accreditation procedure for agents and insurance agency companies, the granting of administrative authorizations for brokerage companies, and the guarantees that the latter must meet.\nOnly duly authorized insurance intermediaries, in accordance with this Law, may conduct insurance intermediation. Considered as insurance intermediaries are insurance agents, insurance agency companies, insurance brokerage companies, and the brokers of the latter. Insurance agency companies and insurance brokerage companies may only develop the intermediation activity through insurance agents and brokers, respectively. In cases of cross-border trade of intermediation services and auxiliary insurance services, the provisions of Article 16 of this Law shall apply.\nThe Superintendence must request, administratively or judicially, that anyone who violates the provision of the preceding paragraph cease using the improperly used expression. The competent judicial, administrative, or municipal authority may order the closure of the business, in accordance with this Law or the patent law, if, after ten calendar days have elapsed, counted from the respective notification, the violation has not ceased. The closure shall be maintained as long as the fault is not corrected.\nThe denominations \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and the equivalent terms in any language, are reserved for use solely by the persons and entities that, in accordance with this Law, hold the corresponding license and accreditation to commercialize insurance.\"\n\nIt is important to highlight a couple of paragraphs from the preceding provision: the third, within which the need for authorization from the respective authority to conduct insurance intermediation activities, understood as such those in which the plaintiffs and coadjuvants are engaged, is provided for, and the fifth, where the words and denominations cited therein are declared as \"reserved.\" This reservation is, as the law says, so that they are \"used solely by the persons and entities that, in accordance with this law, hold the corresponding license and accreditation to commercialize insurance.\" Thus, within this legal framework, the commercial activity related to insurance in our country is reorganized—prospectively—and it is, of course, as a fundamental part of such regulation that it is ordered that, in the newly implemented system, the terms \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and equivalent terms in any language, remain reserved and subject to control regarding their use, precisely as a further mechanism for regulating the insurance activity and in application of the necessary protection of consumers, as provided by Article 46 of the Political Constitution. And equally, it is within this reorganizing framework that the transitional provision under discussion is inserted, as it clearly tends to make effective that reservation of the terms mentioned above, as an act inherent to the control and regulation of the insurance intermediation activity imposed in the law.-\n\nV.- Claim for violation of Article 34 of the Constitution.- With the foregoing explanation, it is simpler to proceed to review the main claim made by the plaintiff company, which relates to Article 34 of the Political Constitution, since, as indicated, Transitorio IX constitutes a retroactive application of the law to the detriment of its vested rights and consolidated legal situations in its favor.\n\nTheir main argument is that for a long time and in compliance with the previously valid regulations, they registered a commercial corporation in the Public Registry under the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima,\" that is, a name containing the word \"seguros\" (insurance), and now, long after the registration and having operated validly in the market, the new law and the challenged transitory provision intend to strip them of that name, without constitutional support for such action. In this regard, the first thing to be considered is that Article 34 of the Constitution states:\n\n \"**Article 34.-** No law shall have retroactive effect to the detriment of any person, or of their acquired rights or consolidated legal situations.-\"\n\n Therefore, to resolve the petitioner's claim, the notion of *retroactive effect of the law*, contained in the first part of the cited constitutional article, must be studied first, because it precisely establishes the action that is prohibited when the conditions set forth in the rest of the text are present, that is, *detriment to a person, existence of acquired rights*, or *confirmation of a consolidated legal situation*. Such understanding of the indicated concept and the action it describes must start from the fact that it is normal for legal norms to be enacted to regulate factual situations or events occurring within the period of their validity, leaving outside their scope and regulations both events that occurred in the past relative to the law (i.e., before its entry into force) and those that occur after the norm’s repeal (i.e., after its loss of validity). Conversely, in cases of retroactivity of the law, that usual situation of a norm's validity is abandoned because, in a retroactive norm, its entire legal structuring and its connection with reality are moved back in time. Thus, the factual presupposition is first moved back in time, since it describes specific situations and events whose emergence into reality occurred at a moment prior to the norm's entry into force; but also—secondly—the legal consequences that the norm imposes on such events are equally retroacted, because they are intended to take effect and be valid also from a date or moment prior to the law's entry into force. It is, therefore, a matter of *retro-acting the time* of certain legal norms (both the factual presupposition and the legal consequence) so that they exercise their regulatory legal power by taking events and attaching legal consequences to them, both of which are located in the past relative to the norm's own entry into force. From this perspective, the explanation set forth in the preceding Considerando regarding the legislator's actions in establishing the law, as well as the reading of both Article 29, subsection b), and the challenged Transitory Provision IX, reveal the absence of any intention to change the legal consequences assigned in the past to events or situations that occurred before their effective date. On the contrary, the law in general, and the challenged transitory provision in particular, have as their factual presupposition events whose occurrence, if it happens, will materialize at a time after the provision's entry into force, namely: the persistence, after the law comes into effect, of names or corporate names whose denomination includes any of the reserved words. Likewise, the legal consequences assigned to said presupposition are also only valid for the future, since all legal effects realized before the law's validity remain intact. In other terms, the challenged norm, in accordance with the meaning of the entire law, seeks to regulate the matter of using certain terms in company names \"from now on,\" that is, strictly within its scope of validity, since it states that, \"...*a period of six months is granted, counted from the entry into force of this Law, for corporations registered in the Public Registry to adjust their corporate name. Once that period has expired, the Public Registry shall, *ex officio*, eliminate the improper terms.*\" Thus, the norm clearly does not reach into the past to regulate events and situations that occurred before its entry into force, such as, for example, annulling the registration acts of the respective corporate names from the moment they were performed, or modifying the legal effects attributed in their time to the events and acts carried out on dates prior to the law's entry into force. On the contrary, what it orders is that the passive subjects who find themselves within the factual presupposition of the transitory norm from its entry into force—that is, those who, after the law comes into effect, are holders of corporate names that include the words \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" \"sociedad corredora de seguros,\" or similar terms—must perform—in the future—a certain conduct defined therein in the transitory provision; all of which seeks for persons to adjust \"from now on\" their legal situation to that established by law. Consequently, if the norm does not reach into the past, then it is meaningless to inquire about the possible existence of detriment to any person, or about acquired rights or consolidated legal situations under the terms of Article 34, given that this would be necessary to validate or invalidate the legal intervention of the law in a time prior to its entry into force, which—as explained—does not occur in this case.-\n\n **VI.-** The foregoing analysis, although sufficient to dismiss the claim of violation of Article 34 of the Constitution, nonetheless obliges us to clarify an aspect that has been addressed by the petitioners, which consists of understanding that what is also included within the recently cited constitutional article is what doctrine terms \"weak retroactivity,\" a concept that has been used to designate protection against attempts to modify—no longer through a normative return to the past, but also towards the future—the type and scope of legal effects that have as their cause and derive from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations materialized in the past. Understood this way, it would be a kind of \"encapsulation\" of legal relationships created at a specific moment in time, thanks to which the legal consequences and legal effects understood to derive from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations would be maintained, such that said legal effects become unmodifiable (to one's detriment) and must be respected by legal operators, including judges and the legislator among them. In the petitioners' case, this thesis materializes in their claim that \"the acquired rights\" originating in their favor with the registration, legally performed in the past, of a corporate name that includes the word \"seguros,\" be maintained forever, even though the legislator has decided—from now on—to profoundly modify the rules of the game for the insurance activity and to legally reserve such term and similar ones, setting—from the date of the law's validity—new legal conditions for its licit use by private individuals. For this Tribunal, this thesis is legally unsustainable, not only for the reason already pointed out by doctrine itself, which notes the inadvisability of such freezing in that it can translate into a paralysis of the general will related to the advancement of the legal system and an obstacle to remedying unjust situations, but also—furthermore—for two other important reasons, namely: **firstly,** because it disregards the fact that every legal system, studied and observed at a specific moment in time, presents itself to us as the product and interaction of a broad set of legal effects in progress and being realized at that moment, all as a normal part of the development of innumerable rights acquired previously. Therefore, the enactment of any legal norm, at any time, always comes to alter in some way such legal effects generated by previous legal norms that—in very many cases—are the source of acquired rights that must be respected. In other terms, the set of rights and obligations that correspond to a person specifically at a moment in time, according to the legal system, necessarily presents itself as the result of the effects and legal consequences originated by the respective legal norms that recognized and attributed them, such that any subsequent and harmful modification would be unconstitutional according to this line of reasoning. Thus, and merely to mention two representative examples, this line of reasoning would lead us to legally reject the existence and possibility of the revocation of administrative acts, whose objective is precisely to deprive certain perfectly valid acts that created subjective rights of their legal effects in the future; or—similarly—one would have to legally deny the possibility of introducing limitations of social interest on the exercise of the right to property, because such an act undoubtedly harms property owners concerning the scope and modality of exercise of the right to property that was established—and immobilized—in their favor when they acquired their right in the past and under the protection of the law. **Secondly,** this way of reasoning, besides being legally deficient, is also unnecessary to achieve the protection of the citizen against the arbitrary, unjust, and \"forward-looking\" modification of legal effects derived from acquired rights or consolidated legal situations, because although historically at some point it could have been justified in those legal systems where the legislator lacked, in practice, means of constitutional control over its field of action and degree of interference in persons' rights, the truth is that currently, it makes no sense to distort the concept of retroactivity to achieve the defense of citizens, if rather, as a result of the evolution of constitutionalism in recent decades, appropriate legal instruments have been coined and put into practice for reviewing the constitutional correctness of actions by public authorities concerning what infringement of citizens' rights means. Specifically, it is common in the Constitutional Courts of our legal sphere, and of course also in this Chamber, to use the notions of \"reasonableness and proportionality,\" the purpose of which is precisely to serve as instruments for judging legal norms and legislative work in order to ensure that the restriction and limitation of fundamental rights are carried out within the framework permitted by the Political Constitution. It is for that reason that—as correctly argued in the joinders—the possible constitutional infringement due to the future modification of the legal effects derived from an acquired right does not lie in Article 34 of the Constitution, because technically there is no retroactivity to analyze, but rather the injury—if it exists—would be situated as an infringement of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, which constitutional jurisprudence has indicated must be necessarily observed in legislative production.- It is to that analysis and study that we must proceed to determine constitutional infringements in the challenged Transitory Provision, and this is done in the following Considerandos.-\n\n **VII.- Claim for infringement of the constitutional principles of reasonableness and proportionality.** In order to carry out the aforementioned verification of the reasonableness and proportionality of the challenged Transitory Provision, it must first be noted that fundamental rights, including those of freedom of commerce and freedom of work cited by the joining parties, are conceived—both doctrinally and in this Chamber's own reiterated jurisprudence—as susceptible to being limited when constitutionally appropriate grounds exist for doing so. In the case of the activity of intermediation in the insurance business, which is what concerns the claimants, a state decision is observed, taken through the constitutionally established means, aimed at reordering the insurance business and its related activities, a decision that includes the imposition of compliance with certain conditions for the exercise of intermediation in insurance matters, as can be deduced from the articles of the law. The petitioners argue that the measures taken regarding the restriction of the use of certain expressions and terms constitute an intrusion into business activities, which is only permitted in the case of protecting morals, public order, or the rights of third parties. However, for this Tribunal, that is precisely the case, where the legislator, under the protection of such assumptions contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, has chosen to open the insurance market to private participation under specific conditions clearly defined in the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros number 8653, and specifically in Articles 1 (Purpose of this Law); 2 (Insurance and reinsurance activity); and particularly Article 19 (Insurance intermediation) in its third and fifth paragraphs. All of them (already transcribed verbatim in Considerando four of this resolution), together with the rest of the law, seek to maintain appropriate control and behavior in a relevant sphere of economic activity and to achieve compliance with the notion of constitutional public order through the proper development of society, as well as the preservation of the rights of third parties, reasons which therefore justify such limitations regarding the fundamental rights to general freedom and freedom of enterprise that are claimed to be affected.-\n\n **VIII.-** However, what was stated in the immediately preceding Considerando regarding the legislator's ability to impose limitations on the exercise of fundamental rights cannot imply—as has also been previously affirmed—that any limitation the legislator decides to impose on the exercise of fundamental rights is valid merely because it can be demonstrated that they serve the fulfillment of other constitutionally relevant purposes. Rather, as is already clearly established, it is also required that such measures be reasonable and proportionate, taking into account both the limitation imposed on the fundamental right and the benefit achieved in relation to achieving another constitutional objective or objectives. On this subject, it has been stated that:\n\n\"‘It should be noted that, in principle, it is not sufficient that measures implying a disturbance of individual liberty have been established by formal law for those measures to be constitutionally justified. Indeed, everything legal is not constitutionally valid. Thus, to determine its justification or constitutional validity, it is imperative to weigh whether the social circumstances that motivated the legislator to enact a given law are proportionate to the ends pursued by it and the means chosen to achieve them. Thus, the Constitution provides the legislator with certain normative content set forth by itself, content that allows the legislator to create the rest of the legal norm for each case on a technical basis that must be rational. That is, grounded on a scientific basis. Based on this scientific basis, the legislator must choose the content of the law—the means—to achieve certain ends deemed socially necessary. This legal reasonableness appears when the factual presupposition of the norm sufficiently corresponds to the consequences, benefits, duties, or faculties it imposes on its recipients. In this matter, the guarantee of due process translates, outside its purely procedural denotation, into a requirement of reasonableness of state actions—laws, administrative acts, and judgments—and since the law is one of them, every time the legislator issues an act of this type in accordance with the Constitution, he or she must perform an assessment of reasonableness—according to the general standard that is the constitutional principles and norms—to determine the aforementioned proportion. In summary, the guarantee of due process in relation to the law is the constitutional requirement that laws must be reasonable, that is, they must contain an equivalence between the norm’s presupposition and the consequences they establish for said presupposition, taking into account the social circumstances that motivated it, the ends pursued by it, and the means chosen by the legislator to achieve them...'\" (Judgment number 1995-3929)\n\n These concepts have been reinforced over time, and thus, for example, Judgments 1998-4812 and 2001-11543 respectively stated:\n\n\"‘As the Chamber has also said, apart from formal requirements—of production—a norm must comply with others, of substance, which together with those allow us to establish its validity, and regarding the latter, reasonableness is transcendental, understood as an appropriate adequacy between the means provided by the norm to achieve the ends, with particular analysis of the adequacy of the means provided by the norm and the ideology of the Constitution and the rights and freedoms contemplated by it. If the means are contrary to those rights or freedoms, in themselves or through their effects, we will be facing an absence of reasonableness, and in the case of the challenged norms, the Chamber finds that this absence exists.’\" (Judgment 1998-4812)\n\n\"‘...That is, a public or private norm or act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably founded and justified according to the constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law not be irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or adequacy to the Constitution, in general, and especially to the rights and freedoms recognized or assumed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in the life of society… (T)o determine if the norm effectively transgressed substantive due process (reasonableness) and if, therefore, it is unconstitutional, what is appropriate is to analyze whether the provision subordinates itself to the Political Constitution, adapts its precepts to the objectives it aims to achieve, and provides equitable solutions with a minimum of Justice...’\" (Judgment 2001-11543)\n\n It is concluded from the jurisprudence just set forth that reasonableness is an integral part of constitutional control, in order to ensure that laws do not result in an arbitrary and meaningless exercise of public power, but rather respond to real needs and motivations. However, as the Chamber also indicated in Resolution number 2008-18575 of fourteen hours fifty-five minutes on December seventeenth, two thousand eight:\n\n\"‘... (T)his Tribunal does not overlook the fundamental fact that, in this specific matter of how to respond to the needs and demands of life in society, there is no such thing as \"the best solution\" or \"the correct solution\" that can be said to be purely \"better\" or \"superior\" to the other possible ones. On the contrary, in this particular matter, it is necessary to start from a fundamental premise, which is that the norm is the existence of a more or less broad set of options that can, at a given moment, prove reasonable and adequate for achieving the pursued purpose. Likewise, it also does not overlook the fact that, in exercising this balance of elements that influence decision-making, countless elements of judgment can come into play, all depending on the depth and scope with which one wishes to address the question of what means are adequate to the pursued ends. The foregoing is even clearer in the case of Constitutional Law, where the existence of purposes of the same rank that interact with each other is also normal. For this reason, the concept of reasonableness as a parameter of constitutionality has been approached and understood under the figure of a framework that delimits a variety of actions that can all be understood as reasonable, such that only those acts that fall outside it must be considered unreasonable and, therefore, unconstitutional. On this particular point, the Chamber has expressed the following, precisely when analyzing an Executive Decree:\n\n\"‘*In reality, an alleged excess committed by the Executive Branch is being discussed, in the concrete exercise of its functions of regulating and controlling commerce, and at bottom, what the petitioner claims is the inadequacy and unnecessary nature of the cited Decree.- On this last topic, the Chamber has had the opportunity to rule as follows*:\n\n\"‘\"*Regarding the constitutional principle of reasonableness, which the petitioner alleges has been violated, it refers, as stated in Judgment number 1739-92, of eleven hours forty-five minutes on July first, nineteen ninety-two: \"... a public or private norm or act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably founded and justified according to the constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law not be irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or adequacy to the Constitution in general, and especially to the rights and freedoms recognized or assumed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in the life of society*\". This principle does not refer, as the petitioner interprets it, to the analysis of purely technical criteria that have no relation to rights and freedoms recognized in the Political Constitution.’\n\nIf the claimant considers that the criteria applied in the challenged norms are erroneous, they may promote the pertinent legal reforms but not seek to have such reforms carried out through an unconstitutionality action\" (judgment number 1550-95 of fifteen hours fifty-one minutes of March twenty-first, nineteen ninety-five).\n\nFurthermore, it has been clearly stated that the competence of this Chamber is limited to excluding from the legal system acts that are totally unreasonable, but not to substitute for or to judge the public authorities in the weighing of elements that might make one option more suitable than another:\n\n\"... it should be noted that, in a strict sense, reasonableness (razonabilidad) is equivalent to justice; thus, for example, a law establishing scientifically or technically nonsensical provisions would be a technically irrational or unreasonable law, and therefore, would also be legally unreasonable. In this sense, it should be noted that saying an act is reasonable is not the same as saying an act is not unreasonable, because reasonableness (razonabilidad) is a point within a range of possibilities or options, having an upper limit and a lower limit, outside of which the choice becomes unreasonable, by excess or by default, respectively...\" (00486-94 of sixteen hours three minutes of January twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-four).\"\n\nIX.- Based on the concepts and considerations above, it can be concluded that the limitation imposed by Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653, as well as generally by the remaining articles of the law regarding the use of certain terms such as \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" and \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" or analogous terms in the bylaws of insurance entities and their modifications, as well as in the corporate name of interested legal entities, does not suffer from the defects of lack of reasonableness (razonabilidad) and proportionality (proporcionalidad) attributed to it. Indeed, as explained in the aforementioned fourth recital above, the legislator carried out a profound change in the economic sector corresponding to insurance activity and its related tasks, moving from a state monopoly to a system of regulated activity. Likewise, and as also indicated, as part of this new model, a strong regulatory imprint is observed, which should allow the State, through the competent bodies, to effectively ensure the transparency and correctness of the different actors in this new sector of economic activity. Thus, it is perfectly understandable that as part of this model, and as a derivation of the need for surveillance and control for its proper functioning for the benefit of consumers, the legislator considered it legally necessary to establish in the law a strong limitation on the use of expressions related to the activity, such as the denominations \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and other equivalent terms mentioned in Article 19 of the legal text. And adding even more to this reasonableness (razonabilidad) and proportionality (proporcionalidad) is the fact that such a limitation does not result in an absolute prohibition of use, as the claimant seems to suggest, but rather it is clear from the transcribed legal texts not only that the terms can be used by those who meet the necessary requirements to present themselves to the public as intermediaries of the insurance activity, but also that the claimants themselves could and can—if they meet the necessary legal conditions—maintain the use of the restricted-use terms in their corporate names. Finally, and along the same line, it is equally reasonable that the legislator follows through on its decision to restrict the use of terms related to the intermediation activity in the insurance market and prohibits their use by anyone who is not one of the subjects submitted to control and authorization by the competent bodies; it would not make sense, and it would be a clear source of confusion for interested persons and the consuming public, if, as the claimants and coadjutants seek, the legal possibility were maintained for terms related to insurance intermediation to be used, exploited, and advertised by persons and companies that do not have authorization for that activity because they have not fulfilled the necessary requirements to carry it out. This would undoubtedly be completely contrary to the purposes sought by the law and even harmful to the constitutional rights of consumers, who have the right to receive protection \"in their security and economic interests\" and to \"receive adequate and truthful information\" and \"equitable treatment,\" as stated in Article 46 of the Constitution. For the reasons set forth, the Chamber considers that the establishment of a restriction on the use of terms related to the insurance activity in the text of the discussed law, as well as its consequence set forth in Transitory Provision Nine, consisting of adjusting \"from now on\" the conditions for their valid use by interested parties, is a measure adjusted to the constitutional parameters of reasonableness (razonabilidad) and proportionality (proporcionalidad), so the action must be declared without merit.\n\nX.- Conclusion. Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 does not infringe Article 34 of the Political Constitution, firstly because it does not provide retroactively but rather does so prospectively, insofar as it regulates, going forward, the situation of corporate names that include the reserved terms defined in Article 29 of the cited law. Similarly, the claim regarding the alteration, by the challenged transitory provision, of the legal effects produced by valid legal acts carried out in the past, must not be resolved under Article 34 of the Constitution, but rather as a possible violation of reasonableness (razonabilidad) and proportionality (proporcionalidad) in the impact on rights by the legislator. From this perspective, in the specific case of Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653, it is concluded that its legal content is reasonable and proportionate insofar as it is necessary for the fulfillment of a constitutional purpose pursued by the legislator and is also the appropriate means for the fulfillment of that purpose.\n\nTherefore:\n\nThe joinders filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" are admitted, and the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" is rejected as untimely. The action filed is declared WITHOUT MERIT. Let it be notified.\n\n\n\n\n\nGilbert Armijo S.\n\nPresidente a.i.\n\n\n\n\n\nLuis Paulino Mora M. Ernesto Jinesta L.\n\n\n\n\n\nFernando Cruz C. Aracelly Pacheco S.\n\n\n\n\n\nDoris Arias M. José Paulino Hernández G.\n\n\n\nEXPEDIENTE N° 09-002216-0007-CO\n\nTeléfonos: 2295-3696/2295-3697/2295-3698/2295-3700. Fax: 2295-3712. Dirección electrónica: www.poder-judicial.go.cr/salaconstitucional\n\n**Exp: 09-002216-0007-CO**\n\n**Res. No. 2010-09042**\n\n**CONSTITUTIONAL CHAMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE. San José, at fourteen hours and thirty minutes on the nineteenth of May of two thousand ten.-**\n\nAction of unconstitutionality brought by Boris Molina Acevedo, holder of identity card number 1-696-764, and José Roberto Díaz Andrés, of legal age, identity card number 1-617-689, in their capacity as representatives of the company PROFESIONALES EN SEGUROS DE COSTA RICA Sociedad Anónima, against Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros) number 8653. Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, participated in this proceeding in her capacity as Attorney General of the Republic, as well as the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" as coadjuvants.-\n\n**Having reviewed:**\n\n**1.-** By brief received in the Secretariat of the Chamber on the sixteenth of February of two thousand nine, the claimant requests that the unconstitutionality of Transitory Provision IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 be declared, as he alleges that said norm expressly violates, in a special manner, the principle of non-retroactivity of the law enshrined in Article 34 of the Political Constitution, to the extent that it establishes an express order to the Public Registry to ex officio eliminate or suppress the words \"seguros,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" and \"aseguramiento\" from any commercial company registered with that entity, all by virtue of Article 29 subsection b) of Law number 8653 so providing as a rule for companies registered after the effective date of that law. This generates, in the claimant's opinion, a serious injury to the right enshrined in Article 34 of the Constitution, since the claimant company has been registered since nineteen ninety-five, such that the transitory norm comes to regulate completely consolidated legal situations to the benefit of our corporation, thereby injuring vested rights (derechos adquiridos) of the partners of the claimant company. It is affirmed that judgment number 2765-97 clearly establishes the conditions under which what constitutes a vested right and what we must understand as a consolidated legal situation (situación jurídica consolidada) are to be understood, such that applying said doctrine to the case, one could say that Article 103 of the Commercial Code is the basis upon which a rule emerged into legal life that connects a factual premise—the right to establish a specific name that identifies a commercial company—with a given consequence, that is, the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica\" registered in the Commercial Registry. The annulment of the indicated transitory article is therefore requested.-\n\n**2.-** By resolution issued at eight hours and twenty-five minutes on the eighteenth of February of two thousand nine, visible at folio 17 of the case file, the action was admitted for processing, and a hearing was granted to the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República).-\n\n**3.-** Ana Lorena Brenes Esquivel, of legal age, married once, resident of Curridabat, identity card number 4-127-782, in her capacity as Attorney General's Office, rendered her report, visible at folio twenty and following, and notes that what must first be clarified is that the substance of the claim is limited to the alleged infringement of Article 34 of the Political Constitution, and she will therefore limit herself to expressing her legal opinion exclusively on that point. She adds that what must first be defined is whether a vested right exists in the case of the name or corporate name held by the claimant. For the Attorney General's Office, the conclusion on this point is affirmative if we consider that the majority doctrine indicates that a company's name forms an indispensable part of its individualization and, therefore, a right exists for them which, according to the advisory body, derives from the American Convention on Human Rights, which indicates in its Article 2 the right of every person to recognition of their legal personality (personalidad jurídica). On the other hand, and following that reasoning, the Attorney General's Office notes that the truth is that the norm is not depriving a company of its name but rather obliging it to adapt one word, which is \"seguros,\" and this by reason of a new reality created by the Insurance Market Regulatory Law itself, and which, by permitting an opening in said market, requires that measures be taken in favor of users, just as Article 46 of the Constitution itself demands. The question then, according to what is explained, is whether that change violates Article 34 of the Constitution by harming a vested right or a consolidated legal situation; for the Attorney General's Office, the answer is negative because the claimant is not having something taken from his patrimony. To support this answer, Legal Opinion 139-99 is cited, where it is clearly established that the concept of vested rights embodied in the Political Constitution is primarily patrimonial in nature.\n\nIt is further added that in the same ruling cited by the appellant, the Chamber indicates that there is no right to the immutability of the legal system, so that in the opinion of the advisory body, the crux of the matter lies in determining whether the infringement of the plaintiff's right is consistent with Constitutional Law, that is, with its principles and norms, to which the answer is yes, insofar as the principles that constitutional rights are not absolute and that the State may limit them provided it does so within a certain framework composed of formal and material conditions are complied with, as occurs in this case. For this reason, it requests that the action filed be rejected on the merits.

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            4.- Mr. Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, of legal age, divorced, Insurance Agent, with identity card number 1-585-874, appears in this expediente in his capacity as Generalísimo Attorney-in-Fact of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\" and indicates that he supports the arguments pointed out by the plaintiff insofar as the situation of the company he represents is similar since it has operated under that name since nineteen ninety-seven.- He adds that it is necessary to rebut the opinion of the Procuraduría, because it lacks a clear approach insofar as, on the one hand, it affirms that what is modified is only one word \"seguros\" without realizing that it concerns, in essence, the activity to which they have been dedicated for many years since they are precisely insurance agents.- Furthermore, although the possibility of the legal system being modified is recognized, this must be done prospectively, but not touch situations that already exist, and even less so when they have created subjective rights in favor of the administered parties that have entered their patrimonial sphere, as in the specific case, since the company's name is what has allowed generating trust in the clients of these companies.- For this reason, it requests that the filed action be granted.-

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            5.-  Carlos Francisco Mata Fonseca, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card number 3-201-748, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", Olman Rafael Vega Castillo, of legal age, married, insurance agent, identity card 1-364-999, legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, of legal age, married, insurance agent with identity card number 2-280-607, in his capacity as legal representative jointly with the two previously mentioned, of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\", also appear in this process and request to be considered as coadjuvants because they have a legitimate interest insofar as they are in fact and currently within the scope of the norm under discussion.- Regarding the merits, they point out that, firstly, business freedom and the right to work are violated by forcing them to eliminate the word \"seguro\" from their company name (denominación). This is because in our constitutional law, as it has been understood, the scope of these freedoms means the exercise of business activity freely as long as it is lawful, as well as the free operation and decision-making regarding the company's destiny. This does not happen in this case where the legislator, with its transitory provision, affects the commercial value that company names (denominaciones sociales) have, and it is not so simple to say that it is just one word because in this case the word is everything. The State cannot, by imposition, regulate the form of organization and operation of companies, and although public interests exist in some cases, the truth is that these have economic rights as limits.- An infringement of personal freedom is also claimed, in the sense of being able to freely determine one's own conduct as long as one's actions are lawful. This provision is contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, so it is clear that the possibility for a company to continue using the company name (denominación social) that was already registered before the law entered into force is an acquired right and a consolidated legal situation, so that, as long as it does not contravene Article 28, it is beyond the law's reach.- It must be clear that there is no infringement of public morality, because the truth is that the argument of consumer confusion is not really true, and in fact there are mechanisms that are equally appropriate.- The same happens with public order because the community's interests are not benefited by the retroactive application ordered. For this reason, an infringement of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality is also claimed, since the challenged norm does not overcome the aforementioned conditions. Firstly, because the retroactive obligation is not necessary to protect the community's set of assets. Furthermore, the supposed interest can be achieved by less harmful means, since the supposed goal pursued of avoiding consumer confusion can be achieved with less burdensome means.- In reality, if one wants to deceive the consumer, it will be done by other means and not only with the name.- Regarding proportionality, it must be indicated that the harm caused is excessive compared to the advantage supposedly obtained.- Finally, the principle of non-retroactivity of the law is also violated, since the case is clear regarding the fact that these are situations that are fully consolidated under the previous law and cannot be modified.- For all these reasons, a declaration of unconstitutionality of the challenged norm is requested.-

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            6.- Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, of legal age, married, insurance agent, with identity card 1-295-635, in his capacity as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\", appears to request to be considered as a coadjuvant in favor of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the norm based on the same reasons stated by the main plaintiff.

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            7.- The notices referred to in the second paragraph of Article 81 of the Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional were published in numbers 47, 48, and 49 of the Boletín Judicial, on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh of March, two thousand nine. (folio 35).

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                8.- The hearing indicated in Articles 10 and 85 of the Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional is dispensed with, based on the power granted to the Chamber by Article 9 ibidem, deeming this resolution sufficiently founded on evident principles and norms, as well as on the jurisprudence of this Court.

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            9.- In the proceedings, the prescriptions of law have been fulfilled.

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            Drafted by Judge Mora Mora; and,

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Considering:

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            I.- Regarding the coadjuvancies filed. Within this process, coadjuvancy petitions have been filed by Guillermo Rodolfo Hernández, in his capacity as Generalísimo Attorney-in-Fact of the company \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\", as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\", legal representative of the company \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\"; Olman Herrera Esquivel, in his capacity as representative of the company \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" and Luis Alberto Guzmán Leiva, as legal representative of the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\". Regarding such petitions, a ruling was omitted at the appropriate procedural moment, so a criterion must now be issued on these requests. Specifically, all the petitions are filed by parties with a legitimate interest in the outcome of the action filed, insofar as they are affected by the challenged provision. On the other hand, regarding the fifteen-day period established in Article 83 of the Ley de Jurisdicción Constitucional for the admission of these interventions, it is held that this period began on March ninth, two thousand nine, with the first publication of the notice (folio 20), so from a temporal point of view, all petitions are on time, except for the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima\", which submitted its brief on May twenty-fifth, two thousand nine, many days after the expiration of the period granted by the recently cited norm. Based on the foregoing, it is appropriate to admit the coadjuvancy petitions filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\", while the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" must be rejected as untimely.

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            II.- Regarding admissibility. This action is filed pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 75 of the Ley de la Jurisdicción Constitucional to defend the rights and interests of the plaintiff within the amparo appeal number 09-001767-0007-CO, which was admitted for processing and is pending resolution by this Chamber, so that, having fulfilled this and the other formal and material requirements, the proper course is to proceed to hear the claim on its merits.-

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            III.- Object of the challenge. The object of the unconstitutionality challenge through this process is Transitory Article I of the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, number 8653, the text of which is as follows:

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            \\\"Transitorio IX.- Adjustment of company names (razones sociales) of corporations (sociedades anónimas).-

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            In accordance with the provisions of subsection b) of Article 29 of this Law, a period of six months is granted, counted from the entry into force of this Law, for corporations (sociedades anónimas) registered in the Public Registry to adjust their company name (razón social). Once that period has expired, the Public Registry shall, ex officio, remove the improper terms.\\\"

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            Likewise, and as expressly mentioned in the transcribed article, it is relevant to cite the pertinent part of Article 29 of the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros:          

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\\\"Article 29.- Objectives and functions of the Superintendencia General de Seguros.-

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The Superintendencia's purpose is to ensure the stability and efficient functioning of the insurance market, as well as to provide the broadest information to the insured. To this end, it shall authorize, regulate, and supervise the natural or legal persons (personas, físicas o jurídicas) that intervene in acts or contracts related to the insurance activity, reinsurance activity, the public offering, and the conducting of insurance business. In addition to the duties established in this Law, the provisions of Article 156 shall apply to the superintendent, with regard to engaging in insurance, reinsurance, intermediation, public offering, or insurance business without authorization; Articles 129 and 131, with the exception of subparagraphs m), n) and ñ), all of the Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Costa Rica, No. 7558, of November 3, 1995. The norms established in Articles 151, 152, 166, and 180 of the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Valores, No. 7732, of December 17, 1997, and its amendments, shall also apply to the superintendent. Excepted from the foregoing are the disclosure of aggregated statistical information and the information provided in this Law. Likewise, the provisions of Article 57 of Law No. 7523, Régimen Privado de Pensiones Complementarias and amendments to the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Valores and the Código de Comercio, of July 7, 1995, shall apply.

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Additionally, it shall have the following functions:

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a) To authorize, suspend, cancel, and grant administrative licenses and authorizations, in accordance with this Law, to the supervised subjects.

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b) To authorize the corporate charters (estatutos sociales) and their amendments of insurance entities, as well as the use in the company name (razón social) of the terms \"seguros\", \"aseguradora\", \"reaseguros\", \"aseguramiento\", \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" or analogous terms intended to be registered in the Public Registry; the latter shall not process any such registration without the indicated authorization.

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(...)\\\"

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            IV.- The legal environment of the challenged norm.-  For a better understanding of the legal dispute raised in this case, it is important to note that the Transitory Article under discussion, as well as Article 29 subsection b) mentioned therein, belong to the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros, number 8653, a regulation that is the product of a profound change in philosophy regarding insurance activity in Costa Rica. It concerns the decision taken by the legislator to abandon the monopoly scheme under a state institution in matters of insurance and all related activities, to opt for opening the market to private competition in such matters, with the State reserving the necessary competencies and powers to exercise strong control and regulation. The wording of Articles 1 and 2 leaves no doubt as to the scope and state mission indicated here and the activities over which that state supervision applies.-

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\\\"Article 1.- Purpose of this Law.-  This Law is of public order and public interest and has the purpose of:

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a) Protecting the subjective rights and legitimate interests of the insured and interested third parties that arise from the offer, underwriting, commercialization, or execution of insurance contracts.

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b) Creating and establishing the framework for the authorization, regulation, supervision, and operation of insurance activity, reinsurance activity, insurance intermediation, and auxiliary services.

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Article 2.- Insurance and Reinsurance Activity Insurance activity and reinsurance activity may only be carried out in the country by entities that have the respective administrative authorization issued by the Superintendencia General de Seguros, hereinafter Superintendencia, in accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of this Law.

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Insurance activity consists of accepting, in exchange for a premium, the transfer of insurable risks to which third parties are exposed, in order to distribute the economic burden that their occurrence may generate among a collective. The insurance entity that accepts this transfer contractually binds itself, upon the occurrence of the risk, to indemnify the beneficiary of the coverage for the economic losses suffered or to compensate a capital sum, an income, or other agreed benefits.

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Reinsurance activity is understood as that in which, based on a reinsurance contract and in exchange for a premium, a reinsurance entity accepts the cession of all or part of the risk assumed by an insurance entity, by virtue of the underlying insurance contracts. To the extent applicable, the provisions established in the legislation for insurance entities shall apply to reinsurance entities.

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All natural or legal persons (personas físicas o jurídicas) who participate, directly or indirectly, in the development or carry out in any way insurance activity, reinsurance activity, their intermediation, and auxiliary insurance services, shall be subject to the scope of application of this Law.

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Excluded from the scope of this Law are the mandatory social security systems administered by the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), in accordance with the provisions of Article 73 of the Political Constitution, Article 2 of Law No. 17, of October 22, 1943, which created the CCSS; the special pension regimes created by law; and the mandatory mutual policy administered by the Sociedad de Seguros de Vida del Magisterio Nacional, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 496 to 508 of the Código de Educación, Law No. 181, of August 18, 1944, and its amendments.\\\"

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            In that same sense, and even more specifically in relation to the subject of this action, we find the provisions of Article 19 of the aforementioned law, where the limits on intermediation activity in insurance matters are clearly stated, which is precisely the activity to which both the plaintiffs and the coadjuvants are dedicated:

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\\\"Article 19.- Insurance Intermediation.- The activity of insurance intermediation comprises the promotion, offer, and, in general, the acts aimed at the conclusion of an insurance contract, its renewal or modification, the processing of claims, and the advice provided in relation to such contracts. Insurance intermediation does not include activities inherent to insurance or reinsurance activity.

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The National Council shall develop, by regulation, the aspects related to the intermediation activity established in this chapter, including the approval of intermediary training programs, the granting of licenses to agents and brokers, the accreditation procedure for agents and insurance agency companies (sociedades agencias de seguros), the granting of administrative authorizations for brokerage companies (sociedades corredoras), and the guarantees that the latter must meet.

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Only duly authorized insurance intermediaries in accordance with this Law may carry out insurance intermediation. Insurance intermediaries are considered to be insurance agents, insurance agency companies (sociedades agencias de seguros), insurance brokerage companies (sociedades corredoras de seguros), and the brokers of the latter. Insurance agency companies (sociedades agencias de seguros) and insurance brokerage companies (sociedades corredoras de seguros) may only carry out intermediation activity through insurance agents and brokers, respectively. In cases of cross-border trade of intermediation services and auxiliary insurance services, the provisions of Article 16 of this Law shall apply.

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The Superintendencia must request, administratively or judicially, that anyone who violates the provision of the preceding paragraph cease using the improperly employed expression. The competent judicial, administrative, or municipal authority may decree the closure of the business, in accordance with this Law or the patent law, if, after ten calendar days have elapsed, counted from the respective notification, the infringement has not ceased. The closure shall be maintained as long as the fault is not corrected.

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The names (denominaciones) \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and equivalent terms in any language, are reserved for use exclusively by persons and entities that, in accordance with this Law, have the corresponding license and accreditation to market insurance.

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            It is important to highlight a couple of paragraphs from the previous provision: the third, within which the need to have authorization from the respective authority to carry out insurance intermediation work is established, understood as such those activities to which the plaintiffs and coadjuvants are dedicated, and the fifth, where the words and names (denominaciones) cited therein are declared as \"reserved.\" Said reservation is, as the law states, so that \"they are used exclusively by persons and entities that, in accordance with this law, have the corresponding license and accreditation to market insurance.\" Thus, with this legal framework, the commercial activity related to insurance in our country is reorganized -prospectively-, and it is of course as a fundamental part of such regulation that it is ordered that, in the new implanted system, the terms \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and equivalent terms in any language, are reserved and subject to control regarding their use, precisely as one more regulatory mechanism for insurance activity and in application of the necessary consumer protection as provided in Article 46 of the Political Constitution. And equally, it is within this reorganizing framework that the transitory article under discussion is inserted, as it clearly tends to make that reservation of the aforementioned terms a reality, as an act inherent to the control and regulation of insurance intermediation activity imposed by the law.-

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            V.- Claim for violation of Article 34 of the Constitution.- With the previous explanation, it is easier to proceed to review the main claim made by the plaintiff company, which relates to Article 34 of the Political Constitution, since, as indicated, Transitorio IX constitutes a retroactive application of the law to the detriment of its acquired rights and of consolidated legal situations in its favor.\n\nTheir main argument is that for a long time and in accordance with the previously valid regulations, they registered a commercial company in the Public Registry under the name \"Profesionales de Seguros de Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima,\" that is, a name containing the word \"seguros,\" and now, a long time after the registration and after operating validly in the market, the new law and the discussed transitional provision aim to deprive them of such name, without any constitutional basis for such action. In this regard, the first thing that must be considered is that Article 34 of the Constitution states:\n\n\"Article 34.- No law shall have retroactive effect to the detriment of any person, or of their acquired rights (derechos adquiridos) or consolidated legal situations (situaciones jurídicas consolidadas).-\"\n\nThus, to resolve the petitioner's claim, the notion of the retroactive effect of the law (efecto retroactivo de la ley), as contained in the first part of the cited constitutional article, must first be examined because it precisely establishes the action that is prohibited when the conditions described in the rest of the text are present, i.e., detriment to a person, the existence of acquired rights (derechos adquiridos), or the verification of a consolidated legal situation (situación jurídica consolidada). Such an understanding of the aforementioned concept and the action it describes must start from the fact that legal norms are normally enacted to regulate factual situations or events that occur within their period of validity, leaving outside their scope and regulations both events that occurred in the past relative to the law (i.e., before its entry into force) and those that occur after the repeal of the norm (i.e., after its loss of validity). In contrast, in cases of retroactivity of the law, this usual situation of the norms' validity is abandoned because in a retroactive norm, its entire legal structure and its connection with reality moves backward in time. Thus, firstly, the factual premise (presupuesto de hecho) moves backward in time because it describes specific situations and facts whose emergence into reality has occurred at a moment prior to the norm's entry into force; but also—secondly—the legal consequences that the norm imposes on such facts are equally retrojected because it is intended that they become valid and effective also from a date or moment prior to the law's entry into force. It is therefore about certain legal norms turning back time (retro-traerse el tiempo) (both the factual premise and the legal consequence) so that they exert their regulatory legal power by taking facts and attaching legal consequences to them, both of which are located in the past relative to the norm's own entry into force. From this perspective, the explanation provided in the preceding recital regarding the legislator's actions in establishing the law, as well as the reading of both Article 29, subsection b), and the discussed transitional provision IX, reveal the absence of any intention to change the legal consequences assigned in the past to facts or situations that had already occurred before its effective date. On the contrary, the law in general and the discussed transitional provision in particular have as a factual premise (presupuesto de hecho)—that is to say, events whose occurrence, if they happen, will materialize at a time subsequent to the entry into force of the provision—namely: the persistence, after the law comes into effect, of names or corporate names (razones sociales) that include any of the reserved words. Similarly, the legal consequences assigned to said premise are also valid only for the future, since all legal effects materialized before the law's validity remain unscathed. In other words, the disputed norm, in accordance with the meaning of the entire law, seeks to regulate the matter of the use of certain terms in company names \"from now on,\" that is, purely within its scope of validity, as it states that, \"... a period of six months counted from the entry into force of this Law is granted for corporations (sociedades anónimas) registered in the Public Registry to adjust their corporate name (razón social). Once this period has expired, the Public Registry shall, ex officio, eliminate the improper terms.\" Thus, the norm clearly does not reach into the past to regulate events that occurred and situations that took place before its entry into force, such as, for example, annulling the registration acts of the respective corporate names from the moment they were made, or modifying the legal effects attributed in their time to the facts and acts performed on dates prior to the law's entry into force. On the contrary, what it orders is that the passive subjects who find themselves in the factual premise of the transitional norm from its entry into force—that is, those who, after the law is put into effect, are holders of corporate names that include the words \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" \"sociedad corredora de seguros,\" or similar—must perform—in the future—a certain conduct defined there in the transitional provision; all of this is intended so that individuals adjust \"from now on\" their legal situation to what is provided by the law. Consequently, if the norm does not reach into the past, then it makes no sense to inquire about the possible existence of detriment to any person, or about acquired rights or consolidated legal situations under Article 34, given that such an inquiry would be necessary to validate or invalidate the law's legal intervention in a time prior to its entry into force, which—as explained—does not happen in this case.-\n\nVI.- The foregoing analysis, while sufficient to dismiss the claim of a violation of Article 34 of the Constitution, nevertheless obliges us to clarify an aspect that has been addressed by the petitioners and which consists in understanding that what doctrine calls \"retroactivity in a weak sense\" (retroactividad en sentido débil) would also be included within the recently cited constitutional article, a concept that has been used to designate protection against attempts to modify—no longer through a normative return to the past, but also toward the future—the type and scope of legal effects that have as their cause and derive from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations concretized in the past. Thus understood, it would be a kind of \"encapsulation\" of legal relationships created at a specific point in time, thanks to which the legal consequences and legal effects understood as derived from acquired rights and consolidated legal situations would be maintained, such that said legal effects become unmodifiable (to their detriment) and must be respected by legal operators, including judges and the legislator among them. In the case of the petitioners, this thesis is concretized in their claim that \"the acquired rights\" originating in their favor with the legally performed registration in the past of a corporate name that includes the word \"seguros,\" be maintained forever, even though the legislator has decided—from now on—to profoundly modify the rules of the game for the insurance activity and to legally reserve such term and other similar ones, establishing—from the effective date of the law—new legal conditions for its lawful use by private individuals. For this Court, this thesis is legally untenable, not only for the reason already pointed out by the doctrine itself, which notes the inadvisability of such a freezing in that it can translate into a paralysis of the general will related to the advancement of the legal system and an obstacle to remedying unjust situations, but also—furthermore—for two other important reasons, namely: firstly, because it overlooks the fact that every legal system, studied and observed at a specific moment in time, presents itself to us as the product and interaction of a broad set of legal effects in progress that are being realized at that moment, all as a normal part of the development of innumerable previously acquired rights. Therefore, the enactment of any legal norm, at any time, always comes to alter in some way such legal effects generated by prior legal norms that—in very many cases—are the source of acquired rights that would have to be respected. In other terms, the set of rights and obligations that correspond to a specific person at a point in time, according to the legal system, necessarily appear as the result of the effects and legal consequences originated by the respective legal norms that recognized and attributed them, so that any subsequent and harmful modification would be unconstitutional according to this line of reasoning. In this way, and just to mention two representative examples, this line of reasoning would lead us to legally reject the existence and possibility of the revocation of administrative acts, whose objective is precisely to deprive in the future certain perfectly valid acts that create subjective rights of their legal effects; or similarly—it would be necessary to legally deny the possibility of introducing limitations of social interest to the exercise of the right of property (derecho de propiedad), because such an act undoubtedly harms the owners regarding the scope and modality of exercise of the right of property that was established—and immobilized—in their favor when they acquired their right in the past and under the protection of the law. Secondly, this way of reasoning, in addition to being legally deficient, is also unnecessary to achieve the protection of the citizen against the arbitrary, unjust, and \"forward-looking\" modification of legal effects derived from acquired rights or consolidated legal situations, because although historically it could have been justified at some point in those systems where the legislator practically lacked means of constitutional control over its scope of action and degree of interference with individuals' rights, the truth is that currently, it makes no sense to distort the concept of retroactivity to achieve the defense of the administered persons if, rather, as a result of the evolution of constitutionalism in recent decades, appropriate legal instruments have been coined and put into practice for the review of the constitutional correctness of the actions of public authorities in relation to what constitutes an infringement of citizens' rights. Specifically, it is common in the Constitutional Courts of our legal sphere, and of course also in this Chamber, to use the notions of \"reasonableness and proportionality\" (razonabilidad y proporcionalidad), whose purpose is precisely to serve as instruments to judge legal norms and legislative work in order to ensure that the restriction and limitation of fundamental rights is carried out within the framework permitted by the Political Constitution. It is for this reason that—as is correctly raised in the amicus curiae briefs (coadyuvancias)—the possible constitutional infraction due to the future modification of the legal effects derived from an acquired right does not lie in Article 34 of the Constitution, because technically there is no retroactivity to analyze, but rather the injury—if it exists—would be located as an infraction of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality that constitutional jurisprudence has indicated must be necessarily observed in legislative production.- It is to this analysis and study that we must proceed to determine constitutional infractions in the transitional provision discussed, and this is done in the following recitals.-\n\nVII.- Claim for Infraction of the Constitutional Principles of Reasonableness and Proportionality. In order to carry out the recently cited verification of the reasonableness and proportionality of the questioned transitional provision, it must first be noted that fundamental rights, including the freedom of commerce and freedom to work cited by the amicus curiae, are conceived—both doctrinally and in the own reiterated jurisprudence of this Chamber—as susceptible to being limited when constitutionally appropriate grounds exist for doing so. In the case of the insurance intermediation activity, which is the one of interest to the claimants, a state decision is observed, taken through constitutionally established means, aimed at reorganizing the insurance activity and its related activities, a decision that includes the imposition of compliance with certain conditions for the exercise of insurance intermediation, as can be deduced from the articles of the law. The petitioners allege that the measures taken regarding restricting the use of certain expressions and words constitute an intrusion into business activity, which is only permitted in the case of protection of morality, public order (orden público), or the rights of third parties. However, for this Court, that is precisely the case, where the legislator, under the protection of such assumptions contained in Article 28 of the Constitution, has opted to open the insurance market to private participation, under specific conditions clearly defined in the Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros number 8653 and specifically in Articles 1 (Purpose of this Law), 2 (Insurance and Reinsurance Activity), and particularly 19 (Insurance Intermediation) in its third and fifth paragraphs. All of them (already transcribed textually in recital IV of this resolution), together with the rest of the law, seek to maintain appropriate control and behavior in a relevant sphere of economic activity and to achieve compliance with the notion of constitutional public order (orden público) through the appropriate development of society, as well as the preservation of third-party rights, reasons that then justify such limitations against the fundamental rights to freedom in general and to freedom of enterprise that are claimed to be affected.-\n\nVIII.- However, what is stated in the immediately preceding recital regarding the legislator's possibility of imposing limitations on the exercise of fundamental rights cannot mean—as has also been stated previously—that any limitation the legislator decides to impose on the exercise of fundamental rights is valid merely because it can be demonstrated that they serve other constitutionally relevant purposes. Rather, as is already clearly established, it is also required that such measures be reasonable and proportionate, taking into account both the imposed limitation on the fundamental right and the benefit achieved in relation to the attainment of another or other constitutional objectives. On this subject, it has been stated that:\n\n\"It must be noted that, in principle, it is not enough that measures implying a disturbance of an individual's freedom have been established by formal law for those measures to be constitutionally justified. Indeed, not everything legal is constitutionally valid. Thus, to determine their justification or constitutional validity, it is imperative to weigh whether the social circumstances that motivated the legislator to enact a given law are proportionate to the ends pursued by it and the means chosen to achieve them. Thus, the Constitution provides the legislator with certain normative contents enunciated by it, contents that allow the latter to create the rest of the legal norm for each case on a technical basis that must be rational. That is, with support on a scientific basis. It is based on this scientific basis that the content of the law—means—must be chosen to achieve certain ends socially esteemed as necessary. This legally reasonableness appears when the factual premise of the norm is balanced with the consequences, provisions, duties, or powers it imposes on its recipients. In this matter, the guarantee of due process translates, beyond its purely procedural denotation, into a requirement of reasonableness of state actions—laws, administrative acts, and judgments—and since the law is one of them, each time the legislator issues an act of this type in accordance with the Constitution, they must carry out an assessment of reasonableness—according to the general standard that are the constitutional principles and norms—to determine the aforementioned proportion. In summary, the guarantee of due process in relation to the law is the constitutional requirement that laws must be reasonable, that is, they must contain an equivalence between the premise of the norm and the consequences that they establish for said premise, taking into account the social circumstances that motivated it, the ends pursued by it, and the means chosen by the legislator to achieve them...\" (judgment number 1995-3929)\n\nThese concepts have been reinforced over time, and thus, for example, in judgments 1998-4812 and 2001-11543, the following was stated respectively:\n\n\"As the Chamber has also stated, apart from formal requirements—of production—, a norm must comply with others, of substance, which together with the former, allow us to establish its validity, and regarding the latter, reasonableness is transcendental, reasonableness being understood as an appropriate adequacy between the means provided by the norm to achieve the ends, with particular analysis of the adequacy of the means provided by the norm and the ideology of the Constitution and the rights and freedoms contemplated by it. If the means are contrary to those rights or freedoms, per se or by their effects, we will be facing an absence of reasonableness, and in the case of the challenged norms, the Chamber finds that this absence exists.\" (judgment 1998-4812)\n\n\"... That is, a public or private norm or act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably founded and justified in accordance with the constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law is not irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or the adequacy to the Constitution in general, and especially, to the rights and freedoms recognized or assumed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in the life of society... To determine if the norm effectively transgressed substantive due process (reasonableness) and if, therefore, it is unconstitutional, what is appropriate is to analyze whether the provision is subordinate to the Political Constitution, adapts its precepts to the objectives it seeks to achieve, and gives equitable solutions with a minimum of Justice...\" (judgment 2001-11543)\n\nIt is concluded from the jurisprudence just cited that reasonableness forms an integral part of constitutional control in order to ensure that laws do not result in an arbitrary and meaningless exercise of public power, but rather respond to real needs and motivations. However, as the Chamber has also pointed out in resolution number 2008-18575 at fourteen hours fifty-five minutes on December seventeenth, two thousand eight:\n\n\"... This Court does not overlook the fundamental fact that in this specific subject of the way in which the needs and exigencies of life in society should be answered, there is no such thing as 'the best solution' or 'the correct solution' about which it can be said that it is purely 'better' or 'superior' to the other possible ones. On the contrary, in this particular subject it is necessary to start from a fundamental premise, which is that the normal situation is the existence of a more or less broad set of options that may at a given time be reasonable and adequate for achieving the purpose pursued. Likewise, we do not overlook the fact that in the exercise of this balance of elements that influence the making of a decision, countless elements of judgment can come into play, all depending on the depth and scope with which one wishes to address the question of what are the adequate means for the ends pursued. The foregoing is even clearer in the case of Constitutional Law, where the normal situation is also the existence of ends of the same rank that interact with each other. For this reason, the concept of reasonableness as a parameter of constitutionality has been approached and understood under the figure of a framework that delimits a variety of actions that can all be understood as reasonable, so that only those acts that fall outside of this framework must be considered unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. On this particular point, the Chamber has expressed the following, precisely when analyzing an Executive Decree (Decreto Ejecutivo):\n\n\"In reality, an alleged excess committed by the Executive Branch in the concrete exercise of its functions of regulating and controlling commerce is being discussed, and at its core, what the petitioner claims is the inadequacy and unnecessary nature of the cited Decree.- On this last subject, the Chamber has had the opportunity to rule in the following way:\n\n\"Regarding the constitutional principle of reasonableness, which the petitioner alleges as violated, as stated in judgment number 1739-92, at eleven hours forty-five minutes on July first, nineteen ninety-two: '... a public or private norm or act is only valid when, in addition to its formal conformity with the Constitution, it is reasonably founded and justified in accordance with the constitutional ideology. In this way, it is sought not only that the law is not irrational, arbitrary, or capricious, but also that the selected means have a real and substantial relationship with their object. A distinction is then made between technical reasonableness, which is, as stated, the proportionality between means and ends; legal reasonableness, or the adequacy to the Constitution in general, and especially, to the rights and freedoms recognized or assumed by it; and finally, reasonableness of the effects on personal rights, in the sense of not imposing on those rights other limitations or burdens than those reasonably derived from the nature and regime of the rights themselves, nor greater than those indispensable for them to function reasonably in the life of society.' This principle does not refer, as the petitioner interprets it, to the analysis of purely technical criteria, which have no relationship with rights and freedoms recognized in the Political Constitution.\n\nIf the claimant considers that the criteria applied in the challenged norms are erroneous, they may promote the corresponding legal reforms but not seek, through an action of unconstitutionality, to effect such reforms\" (judgment number 1550-95 of fifteen hours fifty-one minutes of March twenty-first, nineteen ninety-five).\n\nFurthermore, it has been clearly stated that the jurisdiction of this Court is limited to excluding from the legal order acts that are entirely unreasonable, but not to substitute for or to judge public authorities in the weighing of elements that might make one option more suitable than another:\n\n\"... it must be noted that, in a strict sense, reasonableness is equivalent to justice; thus, for instance, a law that establishes scientifically or technically absurd provisions would be a technically irrational or unreasonable law, and therefore, would also be legally unreasonable. In this sense, it is worth noting that it is not the same to say that an act is reasonable, as it is to say that an act is not unreasonable, because reasonableness is a point within a range of possibilities or options, having an upper and a lower limit, outside of which the choice becomes unreasonable, by excess or by defect, respectively...\" (00486-94 of sixteen hours three minutes of January twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-four).\"\n\n**IX.-** Based on the foregoing concepts and considerations, it can be concluded that the limitation imposed by both Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653, and, in general, the remaining articles of the law regarding the use of certain terms such as \"seguros,\" \"aseguradora,\" \"reaseguros,\" \"aseguramiento,\" \"sociedad agencia de seguros,\" and \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" or analogous terms in the corporate bylaws of insurance entities and their modifications, as well as in the corporate name of the interested legal entities, does not suffer from the defects of lack of reasonableness and proportionality attributed to them. Indeed, as explained in the aforementioned fourth recital above, the legislator undertook a profound change in the economic sector corresponding to the insurance activity and its related tasks, transitioning from a state monopoly to a system of regulated activity. Likewise, and as also indicated, as part of this new model, a strong regulatory imprint is observed that should allow the State, through the competent bodies, to effectively ensure the transparency and correctness of the different actors in this new sector of economic activity. Thus, it is perfectly understandable that as part of this model, and as a derivation of the need for oversight and control for its proper functioning for the benefit of consumers, the legislator considered it legally necessary to establish in the law a strong limitation on the use of expressions related to the activity, such as the denominations \"agente de seguros\" or \"sociedad agencia de seguros\" and \"corredor de seguros\" or \"sociedad corredora de seguros\" and other equivalent terms mentioned in Article 19 of the legal text. Adding even more to this reasonableness and proportionality is the fact that such limitation does not result in an absolute prohibition of use, as seems to be raised by the claimant, but rather it is clear from the transcribed legal texts not only that the terms can be used by those who meet the necessary requirements to present themselves to the public as intermediaries of the insurance activity, but also that the claimants themselves could and can—if they meet the necessary legal conditions—maintain the use of the restricted-use terms in their corporate names. Finally, and along the same lines, it is equally reasonable for the legislator to carry its decision to restrict the use of terms related to intermediation activity in the insurance market to its conclusion and to prohibit their use by anyone who is not one of the subjects subject to control and authorization by the competent bodies; it would make no sense and would be a clear source of confusion for interested persons and the consuming public if, as the claimants and coadjuvants seek, the possibility were legally maintained that terms related to insurance intermediation could be used, exploited, and advertised by persons and companies that do not have authorization for that activity because they have not met the necessary requirements to carry it out. This would undoubtedly be completely detrimental to the aims pursued by the law and even injurious to the constitutional rights of consumers, who have the right to receive protection \"in their safety and economic interests\" and to \"receive adequate and truthful information\" and \"equitable treatment,\" as stated in Constitutional Article 46. For the reasons stated, the Court considers that the establishment of a restriction on the use of terms related to the insurance activity in the text of the discussed law, as well as its consequence set forth in Transitory IX, consisting of the adjustment \"from now on\" of the conditions for their valid use by interested parties, is a measure adjusted to the constitutional parameters of reasonableness and proportionality, so the action must be dismissed.\n\n**X.- Conclusion.** Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653 does not infringe Article 34 of the Political Constitution, first because it does not act retroactively, but rather acts into the future, as it regulates prospectively the situation of corporate names that include the reserved terms defined in Article 29 of said law. In the same way, the claim regarding the alteration, by the challenged transitory provision, of the legal effects produced by valid legal acts performed in the past should not be resolved against Constitutional Article 34, but rather as a possible violation of reasonableness and proportionality in the impairment of rights by the legislator. From this perspective, in the specific case of Transitory IX of the Insurance Market Regulatory Law number 8653, it is concluded that its legal content is reasonable and proportionate insofar as it is necessary for the fulfillment of a constitutional purpose pursued by the legislator and is also suitable for the fulfillment of such purpose.-\n\n**Por tanto:**\n\nThe coadjuvancies filed by the companies \"Consorcio de Seguros y Servicios Múltiples Caturra, Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Integral M.S. Sociedad Anónima\"; \"Seguros Tres Ríos Sociedad Anónima\" and \"Real Seguros Sociedad Anónima\" are admitted, and the one filed by the company \"Seguros Monterrey Costa Rica, Sociedad Anónima\" is rejected as untimely. The action filed is DISMISSED. Notifíquese.\n\n**Gilbert Armijo S.**\n\n**Presidente a.i.**\n\n**Luis Paulino Mora M. Ernesto Jinesta L.**\n\n**Fernando Cruz C. Aracelly Pacheco S.**\n\n**Doris Arias M. José Paulino Hernández G.**\n\n**EXPEDIENTE N° 09-002216-0007-CO**\n\nTeléfonos: 2295-3696/2295-3697/2295-3698/2295-3700. Fax: 2295-3712. Dirección electrónica: www.poder-judicial.go.cr/salaconstitucional" }