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Dominican Republic The Legislature
The 1966 Constitution confers all legislative powers on
the
Congress of the Republic, which consists of a Senate and a
Chamber of Deputies. The election of senators and deputies
is by
direct vote every four years. Congressional terms,
therefore, are
coterminous with presidential terms, which greatly
increases the
possibility that the president's party will enjoy a
majority in
the legislature.
One senator is elected from each of the country's
provinces
and from the National District (Santo Domingo)
(see
fig. 1). In
1989 the Dominican Senate had thirty members. Deputies
also
represent provinces, but their seats are apportioned on
the basis
of population; thus, the more populous provinces and the
National
District have larger delegations. In 1989 there were 120
representatives in the Chamber of Deputies.
Deputies and senators must be Dominican citizens, at
least
twenty-five years old, with full civil and political
rights. They
must have been natives, or residents for at least five
years, of
the province they wish to represent. Naturalized citizens
are
eligible to run for Congress if they have been Dominican
citizens
for ten years. Congressmen are not allowed to hold another
public
office concurrently.
The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies may meet
together as
the National Assembly on certain specific occasions cited
by the
Constitution--for example, when both the president and the
vice
president are unable to complete their terms of office and
a
successor must be designated. By a three-fourths vote, the
Chamber of Deputies may bring accusations--against public
officials--before the Senate, but it has no other
exclusive
powers. In contrast, the Senate has several exclusive
powers:
selecting members of the Supreme Court and other lower
courts,
choosing the president and the members of the Central
Electoral
Board, approving diplomatic appointments made by the
president,
and hearing cases of public misconduct brought before it
by the
Chamber of Deputies.
The Congress has broad powers to levy taxes, to change
the
country's political subdivisions, to declare a state of
emergency, to regulate immigration, to approve or to
reject
extraordinary expenditures requested by the executive, to
legislate on all matters concerning the public debt, to
examine
annually all the acts of the executive, to interrogate
cabinet
ministers (a bow to parliamentary government), and to
legislate
on all matters not within the constitutional mandate of
other
branches of government or contrary to the Constitution.
For more than a century, the Congress remained a
submissive,
even somnolent, branch. For many years, under one or
another of
the country's many dictators, it did not meet at all.
Beginning
in the 1960s, however, the Congress began to assert
itself.
President Bosch sometimes had trouble with members of his
own
party in the Congress; and, although Balaguer ruled as a
strong
leader from 1966 to 1978, his Congress did not always
function as
a rubber stamp either.
The real breakthrough came with the restoration of full
democracy in 1978. Even though, under presidents Guzmán
and
Jorge, the majority in Congress belonged to the
president's
party, that did not stop the Congress from dissenting on
various
bills, frustrating presidential initiatives in certain
particulars, and serving as an increasingly important
check on
the executive. Although not yet coequal with the executive
as a
branch of government, the Congress had grown as an
independent
body, and its ability to check presidential power could no
longer
be easily dismissed.
Data as of December 1989
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