Art. 49 of the Political Parties Law 33-18 makes it obligatory for a person to be a member of a political party in order to run for office in the general elections. This is a new requirement beyond those established in the 2015 Constitution for the positions of president, vice president, legislator and city government officer.
The president of the Central Electoral Board, Julio Castaños Guzman said that for instance, under that criteria, a politician such as the late Vice President Carlos Morales Troncoso could not have run for office. He said the ruling hinders many members of the civic society from being eligible to run for office. He understands the precept violates the Constitution.
Castaños made the observations when speaking during the panel on “Constitutionalization of politics, advances and challenges in the Dominican Republic, organized by the Constitutional Court as part of the 4th International Congress on Law and Constitutional Justice.
While Art. 49 has yet to be contested for being in violation to the Constitution, lawyer Namphi Rodríguez is already taking the Political Party Law to the Constitutional Court arguing that the clause 44.6 that bans “negative” remarks from being made in social media on political hopefuls is not legal.
Lawyers Miguel Valerio and Ramón Emilio Núñez understand that the Political Parties Law violates the Constitution in matters of requirements to run for elective office, political parties’ right to organize themselves, and freedom of speech, as reported in Diario Libre. In the same story, lawyer Eduardo Jorge Prats observes that the declaring as in violation of the Constitution of different articles of the law does not annul the entire law.
Former National District prosecutor and presidential candidate, Guillermo Moreno writes in Diario Libre on several of the articles of the new law that are in violation of the Constitution.
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El Caribe
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
25 September 2018
