Defects in Administrative Notifications in Spain

As the Spanish Supreme Court points out, a Notification "is an act of formal communication of another administrative act, on which the effectiveness of the second one is depending on -not its validity-", "the mechanism by which the resolutions and acts of the Public Administration are put into effect and in the knowledge of the administered so that, in view of its content, they can adopt the procedural conduct that they consider appropriate ".

This constitutes a fundamental pillar in any procedure, especially in those that are punitive in nature. And it is so, additionally, because the Spanish Constitutional Court has indicated on countless occasions that the defective notification in the sanctioning procedure is relevant from the perspective of article 24th of our "Carta Magna".

So let us remember what said article establishes:

Article 24 of the Spanish Constitution:

"All persons have the right to obtain effective protection from the Judges and Courts in the exercise of their rights and legitimate interests, without, in any case, being defenseless."

After all the previous legal arguments have been laid out, we can deduce that if the Administration does not properly notify, according to the legal procedures stablished in Spanish Law, in the context of a punitive or sanctioning file/process this defective notification could be considered a cause of invalidity/nullity that would invalidate the whole administrative file/process as a whole.