2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-ONE - Municipalities (§§ 1-4 — 6756) › Subtitle 6 - Autonomous Municipalities (§§ 4001 — 4990-4990j) › Chapter 209 - Municipal Legislative Process (§§ 4201 — 4214) › § 4207 - Approval of ordinances and resolutions—Requirements

The following shall be the norms and principles that shall govern the consideration and approval of the Legislature’s draft ordinances and resolutions:
(a) In order to be considered by the Legislature, every draft of ordinance or resolution shall be filed, in writing, before the Secretary, who shall register it and remit it to the President to be included in the agenda of the Legislature’s regular session.
(b) Every draft ordinance and resolution shall be read before being considered and submitted to vote. However, at the time a draft ordinance or resolution is being considered by the Municipal Legislature, by motion of any municipal legislator, it may be deemed read as part of the process. The Secretary of the Municipal Legislature shall deliver a copy of the draft to be considered in the session that has been called within a term of not less than twenty-four (24) hours prior to the holding thereof to every Legislator.
(c) The approval of any ordinance and resolution shall require the affirmative vote of the majority of all the members that compose the Legislature, unless it is otherwise expressly provided by this subtitle or any other act.
(d) Every draft ordinance or resolution shall be effective on the date it is signed by the mayor. When the mayor does not sign a draft resolution or ordinance within twenty (20) days following the date it is presented to him/her, nor does he/she return it to the Legislature with his/her objections, it shall be understood that the same has been signed and approved by him/her and the ordinance or resolution in question shall become effective for all purposes, on the date said term expires.
It shall be understood that a draft ordinance or resolution approved by the Legislature has been “presented” to the mayor when the Secretary hands it to the mayor or his/her authorized representative and its receipt is acknowledged. Its receipt by the mayor’s authorized representative shall be as if it had been received by him for all legal effects. The Secretary shall register the fact of the presentation in the Secretariat of the Legislature, and shall certify to said body, the date, time and place that the draft ordinance or resolution was presented. When the mayor or his authorized representative, although present, refuses to receive the draft from the Secretary, he/she shall state that fact in the certification to the Legislature, and the draft in question shall be deemed as received by the mayor for all legal effects and purposes.
When the presentation is made by mail, it shall be certified with acknowledgment of receipt requested. In such case, the effective date of presentation to the mayor shall be the next working day following the date on the receipt.
(e) The Legislature may approve any draft ordinance or resolution that was returned by the mayor with his/her objections, with the approval of two thirds (⅔) of all its members. Any ordinance or resolution approved over the objections of the mayor as provided above, shall be enforceable, valid and effective as if the mayor had signed and approved it.
(f) Any ordinance and resolution shall govern from the date indicated in its effective clause, except in the case of ordinances that establish penalties and administrative fines, which shall be effective ten (10) days after their publication in the manner provided in this subtitle.
(g) No ordinance nor resolution shall be invalidated because it was approved as an ordinance when it should have been approved as a resolution, or vice versa.
(h) The approval of resolutions shall be handled in the same way as the ordinances, except that those resolutions on the internal affairs of the Legislature shall not need the mayor’s approval.
History —Aug. 30, 1991, No. 81, § 5.007; July 13, 2007, No. 65, § 1.