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Dominican Republic The Criminal Justice System
The Dominican criminal justice system was basically an
inquisitorial arrangement in which a court and its staff
took
general charge of a criminal case, and the judge gathered
evidence to supplement that produced by the prosecution
and the
defense. Evidence was largely committed to writing, and
the final
stage of the proceedings consisted of the judge's
examining all
the combined written material and then deciding whether or
not he
was convinced, beyond doubt, of the guilt of the accused.
The
nation's criminal courts did not, therefore, operate under
a
system of trial by jury.
The 1966 Constitution guarantees several basic legal
rights
to all citizens. These include the rights to due process,
to
public trial, and to habeas corpus protection. An accused
person
is also guaranteed protection against double jeopardy and
selfincrimination . A written order from a competent judicial
authority is required, if any person is to be detained
more than
forty-eight hours or if an individual's home or property
is to be
searched. In practice, the police and other officials
generally
honored these guarantees during the 1980s.
In addition to the Supreme Court of Justice, the
Constitution
establishes four basic types of courts: courts of appeal,
the
Lands Tribunal, courts of first instance, and justice of
the
peace courts. Criminal cases were tried in all courts
except the
Lands Tribunal. There were also a few special courts that
heard
criminal cases, including one for minors. Most misdemeanor
offenses were tried by the justice of the peace courts, of
which
there were about 100, in 1989, one in each municipality or
township. The courts of first instance had original
jurisdiction
for criminal felony cases. There were twenty-nine of
these, one
for each province. Decisions could be, and regularly were,
appealed to one of the nation's seven courts of appeal.
These
courts also had original jurisdiction over cases against
judges
of courts of first instance, government attorneys,
provincial
governors, and other specified officials.
The Supreme Court served as the nation's ultimate court
of
appeal. It exercised original jurisdiction in cases
involving the
president, the vice president, members of the cabinet and
Congress, and judges and prosecutors of the higher courts
(see Dominican Republic - The Judiciary
, ch. 4). The court consisted of nine
members, one
of whom was designated president of the Supreme Court. The
court
also administered all of the nation's lower courts. The
attorney
general, who had the same rank as the president of the
Supreme
Court, represented the government's case and oversaw the
system
of government prosecutors. An accused person was entitled
to be
represented by an attorney. Indigent persons under
accusation
generally were provided free counsel in felony cases.
Although the judiciary was organizationally a separate
branch
of government, several observers have noted that the
constitutional provisions governing the appointment and
the
tenure of judges in practice undermined judicial
independence.
All judges, from the Supreme Court to the justice of the
peace
courts, were appointed by the Senate, and they served
four-year
terms concurrent with the terms of elected officials. This
system
effectively made a judge's continued service subject to
the
approval of the dominant party in the Senate. Critics both
inside
and outside the government asserted that this arrangement
subjected judges to undue political influence. This method
of
appointment and replacement also frequently resulted in a
wholesale turnover of judicial personnel, especially when
control
of the Senate changed hands. Such turnovers affected the
consistency of the judiciary's application and
interpretation of
the law.
The Constitution requires all judges to have law
degrees, and
judges at each level of the judiciary are required to have
practiced law for a specified number of years. Supreme
Court
justices, for instance, must have a minimum of twelve
years of
experience, and judges of the courts of first instance are
required to have two years of experience. Justices of the
peace
are also required to have a law degree; exceptions were
permitted, however, in rural areas where it might be
impossible
to appoint a trained lawyer. Despite these requirements,
during
the mid-1980s the government admitted that the poor
quality of
some personnel, as well as corruption within the
judiciary,
affected public attitudes toward the justice system as a
whole.
In 1985 the president of the national bar association and
the
attorney general's office led a campaign against the low
wages
and the poor working conditions that, they claimed,
greatly
contributed to the poor quality of judges and to the
practice, by
some, of accepting money or preferential treatment in
return for
a favorable decision. The government responded to the
campaign,
which included cancelled hearings and demonstrations, by
raising
wages and by declaring its determination to rid the
judiciary of
corrupt judges.
One other factor that undermined public confidence in
the
criminal justice system was the prolonged delay before
trial that
characterized virtually every case. Preventive detention
was
legal, and it was commonly employed. A 1987 study revealed
that
over 85 percent of the nation's prison population was
still
awaiting trial. Many of these prisoners had been in jail
for
years.
Data as of December 1989
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