2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-ONE - Municipalities (§§ 1-4 — 6756) › Subtitle 6 - Autonomous Municipalities (§§ 4001 — 4990-4990j) › Chapter 207 - Municipal Legislative Power (§§ 4151 — 4166) › § 4154 - General standards of ethics

The following general standards shall govern the conduct of the legislature members in all that is directly or indirectly related to the official duties of their office:
(a) They shall observe conduct that safeguards the decorum, integrity, good name and public respect that the legislature and the municipality deserve.
(b) They cannot be officials nor employees of the municipality in whose legislature they are members. Notwithstanding the above, any legislature member who resigns his office as such, may hold any career or trust office or position in the municipality in which he/she was elected, provided it is an office or position which was not created or improved with regards to salary during the term for which he/she was elected a legislature member.
(c) They shall not maintain a business or contractual relationship of any nature with the municipality of whose legislature they are members, nor with any other with which said municipality has a consortium or has organized a municipal corporation or intermunicipal entity. An exception to this provision is made when the Governor of Puerto Rico grants a dispensation, only in the extreme case that the service provided cannot be offered by anyone else, or when the costs involved justify it.
It shall not be understood that a legislature member incurs conduct that is prohibited in this subsection when it is a matter of permits, patents, business licenses, concessions, or any others of a like or similar nature required by law, municipal ordinance, or regulation, so that the legislature member may exercise a profession, provided, he/she meets all the legal and regulatory requirements and does not ask for preferred treatment other than what the general public receives.
(d) They may not be employees of the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico, the Office of the Commissioner of Municipal Affairs, the Center, nor the Commission to Handle Municipal Complaints. With the exception of what is provided above, the legislature members may, while they hold their elected terms of office, hold or fulfill any other job or general office in the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico which is not an elected public office.
(e) They shall not participate in the work, deliberations and decisions of any matter in which they may have any interest which may produce personal gain, whether directly or through any other person. This prohibition shall not be understood to limit the legislature members’ participation in those matters in which the benefit they may receive is comprised in the community in general, or any part thereof.
(f) [They] [s]hall not assume the professional representation of any person before a court of justice, in a suit for violation of any municipal ordinance, nor provide any legal representation services in any administrative or judicial action filed against the municipality of whose legislature he/she is a member, or in any suit in which the municipality is a party thereof. This prohibition shall not apply when the municipality becomes a party to the suit after the suit is filed, and such intervention as a party is not due to the legislature member’s action or request. He/she shall not render professional services to any person before an administrative unit or dependency of the municipality of which he/she is an legislature member.
Legislature members shall also be subject to compliance with the other standards of conduct established by §§ 1801 et seq. of Title 3, known as [the] “Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Ethics in Government Act”, and the regulations adopted by virtue thereof.
History —Aug. 30, 1991, No. 81, § 4.004; Oct. 29, 1992, No. 84, § 13; Apr. 13, 1995, No. 36, § 11.