Regulatory update
Nullity and restoration of rights: the deadline that applies, and the one that does not
The nullity and restoration of rights remedy, the mechanism to challenge an administrative act that affects an individual right, has a general four-month deadline to be filed. But that deadline is not universal: acts that recognize or deny a periodic benefit, such as the recalculation of a public-force retirement pay or pension, can be challenged at any time. Confusing the two regimes leads to letting a still-open case lapse, or to rushing unnecessarily on a case that no longer had a deadline.
Schedule a consultationThe general rule: four months from notice of the act
Article 164 of Law 1437 of 2011 (Colombia's Administrative Procedure Code) sets a four-month deadline to file a nullity and restoration of rights claim, counted from the day after the act was communicated, notified, executed, or published. Once that deadline passes, the claim is dismissed for expiration, no matter whether the act was unlawful. This rule applies, among others, to discharge-from-service acts and to disciplinary sanctions: if not challenged within four months, the judicial path closes.
The exception that changes the calculation
The same law exempts from that deadline any act that recognizes or denies, in whole or in part, a periodic benefit: those can be challenged at any time. Recalculating a public-force retirement pay or pension falls under this exception, because these are benefits paid periodically for as long as they last. This does not mean there are no limits: the law protects amounts already paid in good faith, so a favorable recalculation normally applies going forward, not as a retroactive clawback of what was received.
The firm's specific asset: public-force pension recalculation
Members of the public force have a pension regime different from the general one, set by Decree 4433 of 2004, which precisely defines which items count toward the retirement-pay calculation (the so-called computable items) and which do not. Most recalculation disputes arise from a disagreement over whether a specific component of military or police pay should have been included in that calculation. It is a technical regime that few Cali firms work in depth, and it is exactly the terrain where a detailed review of the calculation act can uncover a difference in the pensioner's favor.
The discharge act: here the deadline does run
Unlike a pension recalculation, the act ordering a public-force member's discharge from service, or a disciplinary sanction, is not itself a periodic benefit: it is a one-time act, and is therefore subject to the general four-month deadline. Anyone who considers their discharge or sanction improper has a short window to act, and letting it pass permanently closes the judicial path for that specific act, even if their pension recalculation, if they have one, remains open indefinitely.
The administrative courts of the Cali circuit are the territorial reference for residents of the region. Before acting, it is worth identifying precisely what kind of act is involved, because the answer to "how much time do I have" depends entirely on that classification: four months if it is a discharge act or a disciplinary sanction, no deadline if it is the recalculation of an already-recognized periodic benefit.