83 omission that violate it and for which punishment is intended, occurs. The definition of an act as an unlawful act, and the determination of its legal effects must precede the conduct of the subject being regarded as a violator. Otherwise, individuals would not be able to orient their behaviour according to a valid and true legal order within which social reproach and its consequences were expressed. These are the foundations of the principles of legality and unfavourable non-retroactivity of a punitive rule.54 107. In sum, under the rule of law, the principles of legality and non-retroactivity govern the actions of all bodies of the State in their respective fields of competence, particularly when the exercise of that punitive power where the State manifests with the maximum strength one of its most serious and intense functions vis-à-vis human beings: repression, applies. 108. Concerning the principle of legality, Law 25 contained only a very broad and imprecise concept on possible unlawful conduct, whose specific characteristics were not established exactly, their being characterised only under the concept of participation in acts contrary to democracy and the constitutional order. 109. With respect to the principle of unfavourable non-retroactivity in the instant case, Law 25 entered into force on December 14, 1990, and was applied retroactively to the 4th of the same month and year. The letters of dismissal delivered to the workers represent administrative actions performed according to a law that did not exist at the time of the events. The dismissed workers were being informed that their dismissal was due to participation in the organisation, convocation or implementation of actions that attempted against democracy and the constitutional order, and they pointed to participation in the national work stoppage as the conduct that attempted against democracy and the constitutional order. 110. The State argued that the dismissals made before the publication of Law 25 were not based on the latter. However, the Tribunal makes the observation that the very law that is mentioned provides, in its Article 1, that it shall be applied not only to those who may take part in “actions that attempt against democracy and the constitutional order,” but also to those who took part in them. That provision is consistent with the rationale of the draft submitted by the Government to Congress, which became Law 25. In the initial part of said rationale, the following was expressed: [the] draft bill submitted shall empower the national government to dismiss all those public servants or trade union leaders who took part in the organisation, convocation and implementation of the national work stoppage attempted on December 5 last and which, as has been proven, was closely related to the uprising towards a coup d’état led by Mr. Eduardo Herrera. (The italics are not from the original). 111. The Court also makes the observation that, although it had ample opportunities to do so throughout the proceedings, and in spite of its argument that it implemented the dismissals supported by legal basis other than Law 25, the State abstained from indicating which such alleged legal basis was. 54 Cfr. inter alia, Eur. Court H.R. Ezelin judgment of 26 April 1991, Series A. no. 202, para. 45; and Eur. Court H.R. Müller and Others judgment of 24 May 1988, Series A no. 133. para. 29.