For a statutory petition, from what event is the processing period counted, and how must the head of the agency fix and make that period known?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In practice material of this kind, we read the receipt or acknowledgment slip showing when the application was received by the administrative agency, the published list of processing periods by type of petition, and the petition handbook, because the provision runs the period from receipt to completion and requires the handbook to record the periods so set.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the period at its word: the head of the administrative agency must fix, in advance and by type of statutory petition, the period running from the moment the application was received by the administrative agency until processing is completed, must publish it, and must record in the petition handbook the periods so set, along with the periods distinguished agency by agency under the second part of the provision.
Another reading turns on how the period is split across bodies: the head must distinguish the period for the receiving agency, the routing agency, the consulting agency and the disposing agency, but a consulting agency enters only where prior consultation with another agency is needed, and the provision leaves open how those separate periods combine into the whole or what follows where processing runs past the published period.
Your judgment
When an application passes through several agencies, what in the file shows whether prior consultation with another agency was needed and which period therefore applies?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to change the starting point, the agency-by-agency split or the handbook requirement, or if an interpretation settles how the separate agency periods combine or what follows where the published period is exceeded.