SANTO DOMINGO.- The Government intends to carry out a counter-reform because they seek to eliminate the National Council of the Public Ministry and the independence of the prosecutors, considered the former Attorney General of the Republic, Francisco Domínguez Brito.
“Checks and balances are essential in a democratic system. This position was created within the Public Prosecutor’s Office to create a counterbalance, greater transparency and, above all, respect for the law of career,” he said.
He argued that the independence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office is not granted by the appointment of an Attorney General of the Republic, as is intended in the proposed reform to the Constitution, but rather by respect for the career ladder, for the career law regarding the competitions to enter the Public Prosecutor’s Office, said Domínguez Brito.
“If the Council is eliminated, what we are doing is laying the foundations to eliminate the independence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the career regime, the respect that must prevail in that institution and more than a reform, what the president is doing is a counter-reform,” said Francisco Domínguez Brito, who is also a member of the Political Committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
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He stressed that he hoped that in this proposed constitutional reform no one would take such a serious decision, because it would affect the independence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“It is truly disastrous, pitiful. Including that in the project that would be presented on August 16, as the object of the Constitutional Reform, would be a very serious blow to the independence of the justice system in the Dominican Republic,” he said.
“I was part of the Constitutional Reform of 2010. I chaired the commission that established the two paragraphs that established the Judicial Power Council. In all entities of civil society, law, and the political class, we understood and we still understand that both councils are essential. This is how it prevails in most democratic countries where a criterion of career independence is established,” he said.
