The Bar Association of the Dominican Republic (CARD), continues a series of actions demanding the allocation of 4.10 percent of the National Budget for the justice sector in 2022, as established by Law 194-04 on Independence and Budgetary Autonomy.
The first consisted in the filing of an appeal in the General Budget Office on August 24, and the second in the filing of an appeal against the National Congress, the Executive Power and the General Budget Office (DIGEPRES ) in the Superior Administrative Court on Tuesday, September 7, 2021.
The appeal for amparo was filed by dozens of lawyers who are members of the union, led by its president Miguel Surun Hernández, who denounced that the Dominican justice is going through very difficult times, with low salaries for most of the employees, lack of incentives, lack of supplies, of equipment, of personnel, of adequate physical infrastructure, added to the virtuality, which hinders its operation.
Surun Hernández explained that Law 194-04 establishes that justice must receive 4.10 from the National Budget, 65 percent for the Judiciary and 35 percent for the Attorney General’s Office.
He denounced that “resource limitations have made it impossible to put into operation more than 400 courts approved by special laws, that a large part of the current ones work in deplorable conditions, that the holders and other Public Ministry servants receive pyrrhic salaries and lack conditions to pursue crime.
He added that the lack of resources has also stalled the hiring of 1,200 new prosecutors and the opening of 400 prosecutors that were in the pipeline, a situation that keeps the judicial sector economically asphyxiated, ”said the union member.
The president of the Bar Association added that “in the Dominican Republic one cannot speak of the independence of justice, while the public powers, the National Congress and the Executive Branch keep the judicial system in a state of strangulation and continue to breach Law 194-04 on Budgetary Autonomy since its enactment 17 years ago.
It also valued the beginning of compliance with Sentence TC / 0286/21, by the Council of the Judicial Power with the opening of the secretariats and access to the files.
The lawyer announced that the Bar Association will continue the fight in favor of the budgetary independence of the Judicial Power and against the contempt of the Constitutional Court ruling that declared the virtual hearings as unconstitutional and in violation of due process and judicial protection.
Law 194-04 on Budgetary Autonomy
Article 3 of Law 194-04 on Budgetary Autonomy establishes that the Budget of the Judicial Power and the Public Ministry (Attorney General’s Office) will be at least four points ten percent (4.10%).
This from internal income, including additional income and surcharges established in the Income Budget and Public Expenditure Law.
