DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

The executive vice-president of the Institutionalism and Justice Foundation (FINJU), Servio Tulio Castaños Guzman, told reporters last week that the Penal Code that is currently under study is not going to work. He said that just two or three years in jail would not serve as a deterrent against corruption. At the same time he was making his remarks, members of the Justice Department were filing corruption charges against former high ranking members of the Army and the Police for some RD$3 billion in an operation called Operation Coral. Castaños Guzman said that it is impossible to talk about government transparency when the punishment for corruption is just two or three years in jail. He noted that the legislation is currently under study again in the Justice Committee and that he feels that corrections will be made to Article 303 of the proposed code. And he got his wish.

Two days later, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco (PRM-National District) said...