People extradited to other countries to serve sentences return to the Dominican Republic after having served them, and can continue to enjoy illicitly acquired assets, which is why the need for a domain forfeiture law.
whatand is?
Domain forfeiture is a legal tool that exists in numerous countries and basically consists of the possibility that the State, through various mechanisms, can seize or confiscate assets that -in principle- are acquired as a result of infractions.
State in Congress
whatand is?
Domain forfeiture is a legal tool that exists in numerous countries and basically consists of the possibility that the State, through various mechanisms, can seize or confiscate assets that -in principle- are acquired as a result of infractions.
State in Congress
President Luis Abinader, in his accountability speech at the Joint Meeting of the National Congress on February 27, spoke of his fight against corruption, and said: “That is why I inform you that I agree with the Domain Forfeiture Law for recover the money stolen from the Dominican people.”
Later, the president added: “Consequently, I request the honorable legislators to join in this purpose.”
Beyond the wishes of Abinader, and of the president of the Senate, Eduardo Estrella, the status of the bill in Congress has not shown significant progress for more than eight months.
The study of the legislative initiative began in the Senate and was then sent for study by a bicameral commission that was formed on June 22, 2021.
After the formation, and until December 1, 2021, the commission met 14 times, but the depth or progress regarding the project could never be determined.
Hermeticism around the project always prevailed when questioning legislators who were members of the commission.
The only “light” on the discussions was offered in September 2021 by deputy Elías Báez, who hinted that some legislators “could be affected” by the approval of the domain extinction law.
So far there is no date for the possible approval of this initiative, which is being studied by a bicameral commission and which will now go through a process of “public hearings” in different parts of the country.
Senator Antonio Taveras and the law
Senator Antonio Taveras has been for some months the main promoter of the Law of Extinction of Domain, creating a movement called “let’s recover what was stolen”, in order to collect a million signatures for its approval.
The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco, attributed Senator Taveras’s initiative to “bullangry and trying to take political advantage.”
Pacheco agreed with what was stated by the president of the bicameral commission studying this initiative, the Perremeist senator from Samaná, Pedro Catrain, in the sense that the consensus that needs to be achieved is within the National Congress.
This wanders through the chambers and according to some, threatens to become the jurisdiction of the Penal Code, whose voting is paralyzed after several years.
To tell the truth, we only know of the application of a domain extinction law, when laws 5785 and 5924 of 1962 were passed, in which it was specified that all the goods and assets of the Trujillo family were ipso facto confiscated and thus the people Dominican recovered in part what had been arbitrarily appropriated.
