General Regulations

Article 1

ADMISSION OF MEMBERS

  • 1 – The proposal for the admission of Full Members, Adhering Members, Aggregate Members and Corresponding Members begins by filling out, by interested parties, a formulary provided by the secretariat services of SPPSM;
  • 2 – The admission proposal will be subsequently analysed by the SPPSM Board of Directors which, after verifying the admission requirements, will present it at the SPPSM General Assembly immediately following the date of its formulation. If, for any reason, the General Assembly decides not to accept this admission proposal, the candidate must be reimbursed for all expenses incurred so far;
  • 3 – The Internal Doctors of the Specialty of Psychiatry, once obtained the Specialist Title, will automatically carry over to Full Members, provided they inform the SPPSM Board of Directors.
  • 4 – The admission of Honorary Members and Meritorious Members will begin with a reasoned proposal, formulated by the Board of Directors or by a group of 30 or more members, to be submitted to the vote of the General Assembly and previously included in the respective Agenda with mention of the proposed name. For the admission of Honorary Members and Meritorious Members, two thirds of the votes of the present members are required.

Article 2

ADMISSION OF ASSOCIATED MEMBERS

  • 1 – The admission proposal for an Associate Membership will be delivered or sent by the direction of the specialized sections (SE) to the Board of Directors of SPPSM up to three months before the date scheduled for the holding of the General Assembly of SPPSM;
  • 2 – Once the proposal is submitted to a vote at the General Assembly, the candidate will be admitted as long as he obtains the majority of the votes of the present members. You must pay the annual fee like any other regular member.

Article 3

SUSPENSION

1 – After one year of delay in the payment of fees, the Board of Directors will notify, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, the default Partner or Associate Member to pay the due amount, within 30 days, under penalty of losing all social rights and being fired.

Article 4

READMISSION

1 – The resigned Partner or Associate Member may request his reinstatement by the Board of Directors of the SPPSM under the conditions of numbers 1 and 2 of article 1, obliging himself to pay the overdue fees.

Article 5

EXCLUSION

  • 1 – Members and Associate Members who deliberately contribute to the discredit of SPPSM and harm it, morally or materially, in a considerably significant way, will be excluded from it;
  • 2 – Exclusion will be decreed by the General Assembly, by secret ballot, upon a well-founded proposal by the Board of Directors or by a group of 30 members, requiring, for this purpose, the vote of two thirds of the members present.

Article 6

ELECTIONS

  • 1 – The President of the Board of the General Assembly will communicate to the members, at least ninety days in advance, the date of the elections for the Governing Bodies of SPPSM and the deadline for submitting applications;
  • 2 – The applications will be presented in the form of competing lists for the Board of the General Assembly and for the Supervisory Board. The positions of President-Elect and Member of the Board will be subject to individual applications;
  • 3 – The Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Board will be appointed by the President-Elect and must be appointed at the time of taking office;
  • 4 – The full members in full enjoyment of their statutory rights may submit applications for President-Elect and Member of the Board. Each member can only apply for one position in each term;
  • 5 – Each candidate list or individual application must be subscribed by at least twenty members in full use of their rights;
  • 6 – The lists and individual applications must be presented, in writing, to the President of the General Assembly at least sixty days in advance of the election, accompanied by the term of acceptance of the application for the respective position, individually signed by the respective candidates;
  • 7 – It is incumbent upon the Board of the General Assembly to assess the eligibility of candidates and the formal regularity of the composition of the lists, as well as to assess and decide on any claims or requests for challenging them;
  • 8 – The President of the Board of the General Assembly will send, by mail or by email, to all members of the SPPSM, up to 20 days before the date of the elections, a copy of the lists accepted for suffrage and the names of the individual candidate members in the place of the Members of the Board;
  • 9 – Along with the lists, the respective Voting Bulletins will be sent to the members;
  • 10 – Members with voting rights who are unable to participate in the General Electoral Assembly may vote by mail, inserting their vote in an autonomous subscription which, after closing, must be included in a larger envelope, and the name and address of the voting member, addressed to the President of the Board of the General Assembly, sent to the address of the SPPSM office and sent by mail until the third working day immediately prior to the date scheduled for the holding of the election;
  • 11 – The electoral tabulation will be done by secret vote, proceeding first with the counting of the votes cast in the Electoral Assembly and then the votes received by post. The most voted lists for the Board of the General Assembly and for the Supervisory Board are elected. In the case of election for President-Elect and for Member of the Board, the candidates who obtain the highest number of votes among all the candidates are elected;
  • 12 – The General Electoral Assembly will be held simultaneously with the National Congress of Psychiatry, which precedes the end of the mandate of the Governing Bodies of the SPPSM.

Article 7

SPECIALIZED SECTIONS

1 – Composition

  • a) The SPPSM can create specialized sections (SE) in specific areas of Psychiatry with the mission of studying differentiated problems, collecting and disseminating relevant clinical and scientific information, establishing national and international relations with similar organizations;
  • b) The sections must be approved by the General Assembly as proposed by the Board of Directors;
  • c) Approval is made for 3 years, after which it will have to be renewed;
  • d) Each section must have a minimum of 10 full members, associate members or honorary members of SPPSM;
  • e) Each section will have a direction with a President, a Vice-President, and a Secretary, elected for three years;
  • f) Section members must register in the SPPSM;
  • g) A section that does not comply with its obligations and objectives or with the rules of this Regulation may be discontinued, even before the end of the three-year period, by decision of the General Assembly after proposal by the Board of SPPSM.

2 – Responsibilities

  • a) The specialized sections have scientific autonomy and must prepare an annual program of activities that must be presented to the SPPSM Board for approval and that must be in accordance with the SPPSM Statutes;
  • b) The specialized sections will have financial management autonomy over the amounts allocated to them annually by the Board of SPPSM;
  • c) The budget for each section must be presented annually by the end of December;
  • d) The amount allocated to each specialized section must be processed in accounting terms by the Board of SPPSM;
  • e) The expense report of each Specialized Section must be presented monthly to the Board, in order to reflect the movements in the SPPSM accounts.

3 – Operation

  • a) Each symposium or scientific event organized by the section must be held under the aegis of SPPSM and the program must be communicated to the Board of SPPSM, and at least one of the members of the Board of SPPSM must be invited to attend;
  • b) No commitment or affiliation with similar international sections shall be made on behalf of SPPSM without a favourable opinion from the SPPSM Board;
  • c) Each section shall, among its members, at a meeting convened for this purpose or by email, the election for the positions of President, Vice-President and Secretary, and the result shall be communicated to the Board of SPPSM and ratified at the following General Assembly.

4 – The following specialized sections may be created from this moment on:

  • Biology, Psychiatry and Neurosciences;
  • Classification and Diagnostic Assessment;
  • Psychiatric Epidemiology;
  • Genetic Studies in Psychiatry;
  • Gerontopsychiatry;
  • Psychopathology and Psychiatry philosophy;
  • Family and Intervention Research;
  • Research Methods in Psychiatry and Mental Health;
  • Private and Conventional Practice of Psychiatry;
  • Psychiatry, Medicine and Primary Care;
  • Psycho-Oncology;
  • Psychotherapy;
  • Addiction Psychiatry;
  • Psychiatry and Human Sexuality;
  • Forensic Psychiatry;
  • Transcultural Psychiatry;
  • Sleep Psychiatry;
  • Psychiatric Rehabilitation;
  • Suicidology;
  • Affective Disorders;
  • Eating Disorders;
  • Personality Disorders;
  • History of Psychiatry;
  • Psychiatry, Laws and Ethics;
  • Management and Quality in Psychiatry and Mental Health.

5 – The Private and Conventional Practice section of Psychiatry is already active by previous suffrage at the General Assembly.

6 – The sections on Biological Psychiatry, Psychiatry and Human Sexuality and Psychopathology and Psychiatry Philosophy were approved by the General Assembly.

Article 8

SPECIFIC COMMISSIONS

  • 1 – The Specific Committees are created by the SPPSM Board and aim to support it in promoting its activities and achieving its specific objectives;
  • 2 – The Specific Committees are made up of any class of Members or invited individualities by the Board of Directors for that purpose;
  • 3 – The Specific Committees with a permanent nature will be chaired by a Full Member, preferably by the Vice-President of the Board, comprising two or more Members of the Board;
  • 4 – The mandate of the elements that make up the permanent Specific Commissions ends when the mandate of the Board that appointed them ends;
  • 5 – The Specific Commissions of a temporary nature are intended to assist the Board in solving, in the short term, practical problems and are extinguished as soon as the reasons that led to their creation cease;
  • 6 – The specific regulations or operating rules of the Specific Commissions will be approved by the Board of SPPSM;
  • 7 – The following permanent Specific Committees are considered to be created:
    •  Scientific Research Committee;
    • Education Committee;
    • Editorial Committee;
    • Ethics Committee.

Article 9

USE OF FACILITIES

  • 1 – Whenever, in the exercise of their respective activity, the Specialized Sections or the Specific Commissions intend to use the SPPSM facilities, namely to hold meetings, they must request prior authorization from the Board, at least eight days in advance, indicating the date and hours intended for the purpose;
  • 2 – In case of manifest impossibility of using the facilities on the desired dates, the Board of SPPSM will notify interested parties and may suggest alternative dates.