The Ministry of the Interior decorates 990 police officers excluded due to an administrative error

The Ministry of the Interior rectified Ministerial Agreement No. 0004 of January 6, 2024, and granted the Professional Merit decoration in the rank of Knight to 988 second corporals and 2 national police officers who had been left out of that administrative act. The correction was formalized through Ministerial Agreement No. 082-AM-SP-2026, signed on September 11, 2026, and published in Supplement No. 379 of the Official Registry on September 29, 2026.

The origin of the recognition dates back to Resolution No. 2021-617-CsG-PN, of September 22, 2021, in which the Council of Generals of the National Police qualified as eligible for the decoration those police officers who passed the promotion course of the second academic period of 2021 with an outstanding grade, in accordance with Article 18 of the Codification and Reform Regulations of the National Police Decorations Regulations. The breakdown by rank was as follows:

• 8 first non-commissioned officers
• 20 second non-commissioned officers
• 52 first sergeants
• 79 second sergeants
• 1,918 first corporals
• 988 second corporals
• 2 national police officers

Despite that qualification, Ministerial Agreement No. 0004, issued on January 6, 2024, by the then Minister of the Interior Mónica Palencia Núñez, granted the decorations without including the 988 second corporals or the 2 national police officers, and without motivating or mentioning this omission in its resolutive part.

The omission that originated the rectification

The General Command of the National Police had requested the administrative act through Official Letter No. PN-CG-QX-2023-08760-O, dated May 13, 2023. Years later, the General Legal Coordination of the Ministry of the Interior certified, via Memorandum No. MDI-CGJ-DAJ-2026-0810-MEMO, dated August 24, 2026, the physical and digital non-existence of the file that served as the basis for both the 2021 resolution and the 2024 agreement.

The legal pronouncement was issued via Memorandum No. MDI-CGJ-2026-0689-MEMO, dated August 26, 2026, and was complemented by Memorandum No. MDI-CGJ-2026-0713-MEMO, dated September 8, 2026. The Council of Generals forwarded the original file, consisting of 102 useful pages, through Official Letter No. PN-CsG-2026-0965-O, dated September 2, 2026.

Legitimate expectation and delegated competence

The analysis concluded that the 988 second corporals and the 2 national police officers maintained a legitimate expectation protected by the principle of legitimate trust, provided for in Article 22 of the Organic Administrative Code, as there was no motivated act of revocation of their eligibility nor a legal cause for deprivation. The exclusion was attributed to a material error or an involuntary procedural omission by the Administration itself.

The competence to correct the act fell to the Undersecretary of Police, by virtue of the delegation established in Ministerial Agreement No. MDI-DMI-2025-0101-ACUERDO, dated July 4, 2025, by Minister John Reimberg Oviedo. The agreement was signed by Police Lieutenant Colonel Christian Xavier Garzón Pérez, appointed as Acting Undersecretary of Police through Ministerial Agreement No. MDI-DMI-2026-0087-ACUERDO, dated August 13, 2026.

Scope of the rectification and validity

Article 1 of Ministerial Agreement No. 082-AM-SP-2026 partially rectifies Article 2 of the 2024 agreement and incorporates the nominal list of beneficiaries, including ID number, rank, surnames, first names, and average. Among the 2 national police officers are:

• Rodríguez Delgado Jefferson Edi, with an average of 9.33
• Carrera Falconi Santiago Alejandro, with an average of 9.06

Article 2 ratifies the content of Ministerial Agreement No. 0004 in everything not rectified. Execution and publication were entrusted to the General Command of the National Police, while notification, registration, and publication in the Official Registry and the General Order were the responsibility of the Administrative Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police. The agreement is effective from the date of its signing.

The rectification sets a precedent regarding legitimate expectation in the face of Administration errors: nearly a thousand uniformed officers receive a recognition that had been denied to them due to an unmotivated omission, and the applied legal criterion obliges the Interior Ministry to remedy incomplete files before issuing acts of this nature.

Source: Official Registry, Supplement No. 379, September 29, 2026, Section I, p. 3 (official reference: Ministerial Agreement No. 082-AM-SP-2026).