The National Congress facility is now not enough for Dominican legislators. Again, the legislators will be meeting at a beach resort for three days to discuss a controversial bill. Earlier this year, senators and deputies booked stays at a beach resort to discuss the Penal Code. The added expense was of little avail as the Penal Code bill resulting from the beach outing did not pass.
The legislators will again meet at a resort, this time to discuss the Extinction of Domain Bill. The bill would expedite the seizing of assets acquired illicitly. The bill’s advocates see it as an important tool to discourage corruption and drug trafficking and for the state to recover billions in illicitly-obtained assets.
There is a clash in positions in the extinction of domain bills presented by Antonio Taveras (PRM-Santo Domingo) and Felix Bautista (FP-San Juan de la Maguana). Bautista is an advocate of eliminating retroactivity in the extinction of domain bill. Bautista benefited from the filing away by the local judiciary of a major case of corruption against him. Transparency International rated him as one of the most corrupt people in the world. Despite his being cleared by the Dominican judiciary, the US government issued Treasury sanctions against Bautista through the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in 2018.
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El Nuevo Diario
Global Magnitsky Act
28 March 2022