P.R. Laws tit. 20, § 492
The College of Chemists of Puerto Rico shall have power:
(a) To subsist in perpetuity under that name, and to sue and be sued as an [juridical] person.
(b) To possess and use a seal, which it can alter at will.
(c) To acquire rights and property, both real and personal, by donation, legacy, taxes on its own members, purchase or otherwise; and to possess them, mortgage them, lease them and dispose thereof in any form.
(d) To appoint its directors and officers and officials who shall be elected to [the] number [of] seventeen (17), of which six (6) shall correspond to industrial regions, three (3) to university regions, two (2) shall be government chemists, one (1) shall be the representative of the private sector, and the remaining five (5) members shall be: one president, one president-elect, one secretary, one treasurer and the junior past president. The College shall determine the municipalities that correspond to industrial and university regions and may amend the aforementioned distribution of the regions through the action of the Regular General Assembly. Provided, That said distribution shall always represent the entire territory of Puerto Rico geographically.
(e) To adopt its bylaws which shall be binding on all its members, as the assembly provided for in § 13 of this act or in default thereof the Board of Governors hereinafter established may prescribe; and to amend same in the form, and under the requirements established therein.
(f) To receive and investigate the complaints that may be made in regard to the conduct of the members in the practice of their profession; and the complaints can be sent to the board of directors for action, and after a preliminary hearing in which an opportunity shall be given to the interested person, if well-founded cause is found, to institute the proper proceeding of removal.
(g) To protect its members in the exercise of their profession, and through the creation of gratuity funds, insurance systems and special funds, or in any other way to help those who retire for physical disability or advanced age and the heirs or the beneficiaries of those who die.
(h) To exercise such incidental powers as may be necessary or advisable for the purposes of its creation and which are not in conflict with this chapter.
(i) To adopt or [implement] the canons of professional ethics which shall govern the conduct of chemists.
History —May 9, 1941, No. 153, p. 926, § 2; Sept. 6, 1996, No. 195, § 1.