Under present rulings, the President of the Republic has the deciding vote in the National Council of the Magistracy that chooses the judges of the higher courts. President Luis Abinader will have had the greater say in the choice of the majority of the Constitutional Court before his first term is over in August 2024. Four more judges are up to be replaced when their 13 year term ends in December 2023.
The National Council of the Magistracy (CNM) will need to meet to replace the four judges of the Constitutional Court, out of the 13 judges that make up the body.
The first judges of the Constitutional Court were elected during the Leonel Fernandez administration and four during the Medina administration. Another four were replaced during the start of the Abinader administration.
The judges who will need to be replaced in December 2023 are the Constitutional Court president, Milton Ray Guevara, Rafael Díaz Filpo, Lino Vásquez Samuel and Víctor Joaquín Castellanos Pizano.
Eunisis Vasquez Acosta, Maria del Carmen Santana de Cabrera, Jose Alejandro Vargas and Manuel Ulises Bonelly Vega, were chosen in 2021 at the start of the Abinader administration.
In 2018, in the CNM presided over by Danilo Medina, judges Alba Luisa Beard, Miguel Valera Montero, José Alejandro Ayuso and Domingo Antonio Gil were named to the Constitutional Court.
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El Caribe
17 March 2022