The Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) yesterday handed down an historical judgment. In a case involving a worker-employer dispute, the SCJ said that any Dominican citizen who feels that his constitutional rights have been violated can petition the Court of First Instance for direct protection of the court. Such practice is long accepted in many nations, such as the U.S., where a single citizen can alter national policy by challenging in the courts any law or regulation as violating their constitutional rights. This has not been the legal tradition in the DR, and until now the SCJ’s attitude on the question has not been clear. Interestingly enough, in its judgment the SCJ invokes articles of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, which, although ratified by the DR in 1977, was not declared fully applicable here until President Leonel Fern?ndez did so by decree just last Friday.
