He School of Lawyers of the Dominican Republic (CARD), the Dominican Alliance Against Corruption (Adocco) and the Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT), expressed their concern about the approval in the Senate of the Republic of the modification to the Organic Law of the Superior Electoral Court, which land grants competence to know and decide regarding the conflicts that arise in the electoral processes of the professional unions and other associations.
They considered that, if this modification to the law is also approved in the Chamber of Deputies, it would be“transgression of the Constitution and democracy.”
The entities expressed themselves through a press release, in which they called on the deputies to correct the aforementioned “gaps” contained in the project approved by the Senate.
They gave as an example that in the article twelve numeral ten, the project mandates competencies outside the constitutional criteria and guidelines, and they cited:
- 10) Know and decide the conflicts that arise within the union associations constituted by law as a public law corporation and the guilds or the legally constituted associations, on the occasion of the holding of the elections to elect their directors, as well as the challenges against the resolutions, acts and other decisions that are dictated by the entities in charge of holding the elections of the associations. entities of these entitieswhenever they violate or unreasonably limit the citizenship rights of their members.
- Article 32 and its paragraph are also expressed in similar terms in relation to protections.
Reactions
The union that brings together the lawyers explained that not even the Legislative Branch would be available “the capacity to legislate departing from the mandate constitutional“.
They maintain that the Court Superior Electoral It is the competent body to judge and decide definitively on matters electoral dispute and rule on disputes that arise within the matchesgroups and movements politicians or between these.
The entities of society civil They assured that the Court Superior Electoral“it is a political justice, of exception and specialized, strictly and exclusively for issues of a democratic and electoral nature, especially within the framework of public powers and the Constitution, never focused on the private.
They considered that, consequently, assuming competence of the guilds and other associations “It would be nonsense and denaturalization of the functions of TSE“.
“We would be in the presence of a dangerous and undemocratic precedent for the rule of law, with the capture and co-option of political control over the guilds“, they stated.
Finally, the representatives of the entities conveners, Trajano Potentini president of the School of LawyersJulio César de la Rosa, from Adocco; Máximo Calzado Reyes and Ernesto Dotel of Justice and Transparency, recalled that in 2021 the Court Constitutional denied the possibility Court Superior Electoral of the competence of electoral crimes, given by laws, resulting in “a greater contradiction in the claim to be competent for the litigation of the guilds and other associations”.
“We announce that if the corresponding nonsense occurs we will go to all instances possible, both national and international until restoring legality and respect for the rights of guilds and associations, to their independence as private law entities, outside the control and management of politics,” concluded the guilds in the letter.
