Article 720 Federal Labor Law

The hearings shall be public. The Court may order, ex officio or at the request of a party, that they be held behind closed doors, when the right to intimacy may be transgressed or in the case of minors.

The hearings shall be presided over entirely by the judge; if this condition is not complied with, the respective proceedings shall be null as a matter of law. At the beginning of the hearings, the instructing secretary of the Court shall state orally in the record the date, hour and place of the holding, the name of the public officials of the Court, and the other persons who will intervene.

The parties and the third parties who intervene in the development of the hearings must previously take an oath that they will conduct themselves truthfully. For this purpose, the instructing secretary shall administer the oath to them, warning them of the penalties imposed on those who testify falsely.

The intervention of those who participate in them shall be in oral form.

The judge shall receive the statements himself and shall preside over all the acts of proof under his strictest and personal responsibility; he shall order the practice of the evidence, direct the debate, require compliance with the corresponding formalities, moderate the discussion, prevent the arguments from deviating toward impertinent or inadmissible aspects and may limit the time and number of occasions on which the interested parties intervene based on criteria of equity and procedural agility.

The judge shall determine the beginning and the conclusion of each of the stages of the hearing, so that the procedural rights that should have been exercised in each of them shall be deemed precluded.

Once the witnesses, experts or parties conclude their intervention, at their request they may withdraw from the Court when the judge authorizes it.

At the end of the hearings, a record shall be drawn up which must contain, at least:

I.The place, the date and the file to which it corresponds;

II.The name of those who intervene and the record of the non-attendance of those who should or could have been present, indicating the cause of the absence if it is known;

III.A succinct account of the development of the hearing, and

IV.The signature of the judge and instructing secretary.

The instructing secretary shall certify the medium in which the respective hearing is recorded, identify said medium with the file number and take the necessary measures to prevent it from being altered.

The parties may request a simple or certified copy of the records or a copy in electronic medium of the records that exist in the proceeding.

The conservation and safekeeping of the records shall be in charge of the Court that generated them, which must have the necessary backup, which shall be certified in the terms of this article.

The judge shall have the broadest disciplinary powers to maintain order during the debate and during the hearings, for which he may exercise command of the public security forces and impose, without distinction, the disciplinary corrections referred to in article 729 of this Law.