31 Hassán. The dismissal note was delivered in the office of the immediate boss, who made the dismissed workers sign. At the time that the dismissal notice was delivered, the date of dismissal was set on it. The witness was dismissed for having participated in the December 5, 1990, work stoppage. On December 11 of that same year, his boss delivered to him the dismissal notice, and he signed it in disagreement, since he was the holder of a permanent labour union permit allowed by the law. Despite the fact that he had labour union powers, he was dismissed without any type of investigation. Law 25 afforded the workers only two options to contest the decision of their superiors: reconsideration, before the person who had dismissed the worker, in this case the Manager or Director of the company, and a remedy action before the Third Administrative Conflicts Section of the Supreme Court. Under the internal proceeding against the decision to dismiss, the affected workers were not given the possibility to present evidence, counter arguments or allegations. The internal by-laws of the IRHE established that in order to dismiss a worker, the immediate boss had to request the Labour Co-ordination Department to investigate and determine which worker had the right to be assisted by a labour union leader or by the labour union representative for the area. After an investigation, this Department had to send its report to the Legal Department, which determined whether or not the dismissal was applicable. If it determined that the dismissal was applicable, the Personnel Department notified the worker that she or he had been dismissed. After the dismissal, the worker could appear before the Conciliation and Decision Board, accompanied by the labour union attorney. That Conciliation and Decision Board is comprised of three persons: one representative of private enterprise, one representative of the State, and one representative of the workers. The decision could then be appealed before the Superior Labour Court. In the event of disagreement on the part of the affected party after the decision of the Superior Labour Court was handed down, such party could bring the matter to the consideration of the Third Section of the Supreme Court. With Law 25, 5 or 6 recourses were eliminated. Additionally, with the previous system authorisation had to be obtained from the Labour Court to dismiss a person who was under the protection of labour union or maternity provisions. Law 25 did not respect either the labour union or the maternity provisions. Under the regulations provided for by Law 8 and the internal by-laws, unjustified absence for one day was not a cause for dismissal. Law 25 impeded the application of the internal by-laws, which pointed out that in the case of unjustified absence, the highest penalty was the discounting of a day’s pay. The workers dismissed pursuant to Law 25 who were not protected by labour union provisions appeared before the Conciliation and Decision Board, where all their demands were rejected since, according to Law 25, they were unable to process them. The labour courts asked the leaders who filed actions with them to withdraw them, since Law 25 prevented them from hearing such cases. They had to use the reconsideration recourse, to which a response was not made. The reconsideration recourse was a collective action filed by Mr. Adelirio Corbalán, Secretary of the Defence. All those affected by Law 25 at the IRHE, the INTEL, and the IDAAN, filed reconsideration remedies. They brought unconstitutionality action against Law 25, which was declared constitutional in 1991, with the exception of the “paragraph” of Article 2. They later brought action before the Third Section of the Supreme Court, which declared the dismissal legal based on the argument that Law 25 was constitutional.