Former President Leonel Fernandez described as biased, prejudiced and inflammatory the conclusions of a 17 June 2015 report published by the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, DC, on the situation of Haitian migrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic.
The report, “Justice Derailed: The Uncertain Fate of Haitian Migrants and Dominicans of Haitian Descent in the Dominican Republic” was authored by 10 graduate students under the supervision of a professor at Johns Hopkins. One of the graduate students who contributed to the report is a Dominican immigrant to the United States, Amaury Munoz, an officer at the US Department of State Foreign Service according to LinkedIn.
The Johns Hopkins report determined that the Constitutional Ruling 168-13 essentially changed the rules for Dominican citizenship and endorsed the institutionalization of anti-Haitian sentiments in the Dominican Republic. Leonel Fernandez summarily rejected the report’s interpretation of the ruling. “The conclusions of the report are of course false. The interpretation [outlined in the report] has never been in our legal tradition,” he states. He explains that Migration Regulation No. 279, dated 12 May 1939, classifies foreigners into four categories: business, study, recreation or casual visitors; people in their transit across the territory of the Republic traveling abroad; individuals who are employed on ships or aircraft that are docked or temporarily stationed in Dominican territory; and seasonal laborers and their families residing and working in the Dominican Republic.
Fernandez highlights that the Supreme Court of Justice in December 2005 ruled on the “in transit” concept and established that people that had entered and stayed for a certain time would not be Dominican despite having been born here if their mother was a foreigner in a situation of irregular migratory status. Fernandez states that that decision of the Supreme Court in 2005 “is key to understanding the error of interpretation, not only of researchers at Johns Hopkins, but by all who have argued that there has been a change in the transit time concept to determine Dominican nationality by way of jus soli.”
“From 1929 to 2007, in our Constitution and in our laws, the criterion was always consistent in maintaining that Dominican nationality was acquired in two ways: first, because the father or mother were of Dominican origin, jus sanguinis; or by being born in the country, of foreign parents, but with legal permanent residence, jus soli,” he clarifies.
“The allegation that there has been an evolution of the concept of in transit to make more restrictive the acquisition of nationality by way of jus soli, only aims to give strength to the accusations of racism and discrimination that are being made,” states ex-President Fernandez. In his written rebuttal, President Fernandez offers a detailed analysis of the 2005 Supreme Court decision that confirmed the meaning of the “in transit” clause in the Constitution.
Regarding people being deemed stateless, he states that Art. 20 of the American Convention on Human Rights, states that every person has the right to the nationality of the state in whose territory he was born if he does not have the right to any other nationality. He says that Art. 28 of Migration Law No. 285-04 provides for the entry in the Official Registry of Foreigners (Libro de Extranjeria) of all children born in Dominican territory to a non-resident father and the declaration of this child at the consulate corresponding to the country of the nationality of the mother.
Fernandez notes that the report’s authors recommend a harsh series of economic and diplomatic sanctions be imposed by the international community on the Dominican government, if the government does not agree to grant citizenship to anyone born in the country, regardless of their circumstances or our laws that determine the status of individuals residing in our country.
“It is the first time that the application of explicit sanctions are proposed to our country for having decided, based on our sovereign right as an independent state, who are members of our national community and those that are not,” he writes.
He concludes that this is an extremely dangerous situation that should be rejected energetically and forcefully. “Behind this lies the sinister purpose of applying the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine and Humanitarian Intervention, which would be a tragedy for our country, and which the country is unable to assume,” he concludes.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/07/13/380052/un-informe-tendencioso-prejuiciado-y-amenazante
https://www.sais-jhu.edu/sites/default/files/Final-Report-Justice-Derailed-The-Uncertain-Fate-2015-v1.pdf
http://jcsl.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/2/191.short
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amaurymunoz