43 workers had the possibility to appeal later before the Executive Committee, which was the company’s Board of Directors. All workers who were not reinstated in 1990 and 1991 were offered jobs in September 1994, for humanitarian reasons by the Government of President Pérez-Valladares. Almost all of them went back to the company, except for a few who were employed at that time. When privatisation took place all workers at the INTEL were laid off. Pursuant to Law 5 of 1995, all the workers were offered two alternatives under the privatisation process: “to continue carrying forward their employment liability and accumulating years of service,” or to apply for a liquidation and “enter into a new work contract.” Most of the workers, among whom she includes herself, applied for a liquidation to enter later into a new work contract under the same conditions. Less than 10 persons did not apply for this benefit. According to what was established by Article 26 of Law 5 of 1995, and as established by the Labour Code, the seniority premium, vacation due, and contract termination indemnification were recognised. Not always was an indemnification required for termination of the employer-employee relationship; in this case this was done because it was established in Law 5. Salaries not received from the dismissal to reinstatement in the company, were not paid to the workers dismissed by virtue of Law 25, who were reinstated at the INTEL in September, 1994. Indemnification for damages from the application of Law 25 was not paid to the workers dismissed by the application of said Law. No indemnification whatsoever had to be paid. m. Report of the expert Maruja Bravo-Dutary, an attorney-at-law specialising in labour law In 1986 she started working at the Panamanian Labour Studies Institute within the Ministry of Labour, currently the Ministry of Labour Development. She became later Director and Chairperson of the N° 1 Conciliation and Decision Board. Approximately in 1988 she was appointed Secretary General of the Ministry of Labour and, while in that position, she was acting Vice Minister on several occasions. In 1989 she became first acting Vice Minister. She has later devoted herself to her private law practice, and has been an advisor on labour matters for approximately nine years. She obtained a degree in Law and Political Science at the University of Panama in 1985. She did specialisation studies in penal law at Colombia’s External University, and has attended postgraduate seminars and courses at the University of Costa Rica; she has been a college professor at the Penal Law Chair of National University, and at the Business Law Chair of the Technological University. Pursuant to Law 8, which applied to IRHE and INTEL workers prior to the passing of Law 25, the corresponding judicial mechanism was the special labour jurisdiction. Mediation and oral proceedings are principles of labour justice. At the administrative conflicts level the system is a mixed one: one part is conducted in written form, another part orally under governing principles of procedural economy. There are also coinciding principles in both jurisdictions. In conformity with Law 8, the procedure applicable to workers who have been the object of a disciplinary sanction such as reprimand and suspension established that the former had the right to present their complaints before the Sectoral Committee, and then the right to appeal before the Manager of the institution. Public servants who were not governed by a special law had at their disposal, before December 14, 1990, the reconsideration remedy to be presented before the same office that issued the resolution of the act being questioned, and the appeal remedy to be presented before the immediate superior. The use thereof exhausted the means available within the governmental realm, for which reason the next step was the Third Administrative Conflicts Section of the Supreme Court, which is the administrative conflicts jurisdiction, where a revision of the administrative act