President Leonel Fernandez inaugurated yesterday the RD$980 million Supreme Court of Justice and Attorney General palace in the Centro de los Heroes. The eight level building had been almost completed at the end of the first Fernandez administration, but President Mejia, for reasons undisclosed, did not allow its completion. It took the new Fernandez government only four months to ready it for the inaugural. President Fernandez cut the inaugural ribbon accompanied by the president of the Supreme Court, Jorge Subero, Vice President Rafael Alburquerque, First Lady Margarita Cedeno, Public Works Minister Rafael Perez and Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito.
In his inaugural speech, President Fernandez spoke of the great challenge ahead of combating crime, drug trafficking and private and governmental corruption. He said the recent increase in crime in the Dominican Republic is “an expression of the perverseness of the globalization of drug trafficking.”
He discarded there was a relation between the implementation of the new Penal Procedures Code and the increase in crime. The authorities need to conciliate the code that guarantees constitutional rights of citizens amidst a society affected by external factors that have led to an increase in crime, he said.
The architectural and engineering firms of Caralva-More and Mapek, S.A. were responsible for the construction.