Constitutional Court president Milton Ray Guevara spoke out about the Constitutional Court ruling 168-13 on criteria for Dominican nationality and the foreigner legalization plan yesterday, Monday 27 January during his keynote speech on the occasion of the court’s first anniversary.
He said that the ruling applies the principle of favorability because it orders the implementation of the foreigner legalization plan to enable people who qualify to obtain Dominican nationality through a naturalization process. Guevara said that the ruling does not violate the principle of retroactivity of laws because he said that laws that were in effect at the time of the birth of the persons are being applied. He said that “one cannot talk about retroactivity of any rule because the court limited itself to proving that Mrs. Juliana Deguis Pierre had never been Dominican.”
He said that the ruling also established that “foreigners in transit are not a new immigration category,” as reported in El Dia.
He told the audience that for more than 30 years the Supreme Court of Justice had defined and reiterated the same concept for foreigners in transit that is stated in Ruling 168-13. “Our traditional jurisprudence recognizes those who do not have legal domicile in the Dominican Republic or those that lack legal residence as foreigners in transit.”
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