“President (Luis) Abinader would make a very serious mistake by leaving a law of that nature in his administration. He does not deserve an indelible stain like that,” said the president of the Dominican Newspaper Society (SDD), Persio Maldonado, in reference to Law 1-24 that creates the National Intelligence Agency (DNI).
Interviewed on the television program “Sinthesis,” by Michael Hazim, Maldonado also spoke of efforts to produce modern legislation to encompass all the new media through the proposed National Institute of Communications (Inacom).
Maldonado said a team of experts and lawyers worked on the Inacom draft law to reconcile positions of different sectors. He said the legislation seeks to encompass all the new media that exist now.
Maldonado highlighted that there is freedom of speech in the Dominican Republic. He said people can say lies because it is their right to do so. He explained that the communication bill establishes consequences for the excesses. He explained legislation can only establish consequences.
Maldonado said the media has the right to cover public people in public places. The media has access to all public sources and all private sources of public interest. If you are running for office, you are a public person subject to coverage by the media, he explained.
He said that the Constitutional Court has already banned press crimes, and the SDD seeks irregular constraints on the media to be removed from the DNI law. The law also establishes who is responsible in a media.
During the program, Maldonado explained the new scenarios that call for a modern intelligence law and how to regulate the use of the Internet. He said people in power always want to control people.
He said new media makes it easy to make credible what is false. He made the point of how many false news feeds can be built about the situation between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. He said most people will believe them, and will not see the rectification.
He said this is a reality that calls for a new attitude that obliges the government to be more transparent.
The executive editor of El Nuevo Diario said that the President has the mechanisms to improve the law as passed recently in Congress and objected by the journalism community. The law organizes the entire intelligence structure of the Dominican Republic. Maldonado said that all states in the world have this kind of legislation.
In response to the objections, President Luis Abinader created a committee to reach consensus around the controversial Law 1-24 that organizes intelligence entities in the Dominican Republic.
Persio Maldonado, coordinator of the committee, says talks are ongoing to reach a robust consensus. He said the President has expressed he will adhere to the consensus.
“We are in that process,” said the president of the SDD, who reiterated that the law contains aspects that violate the Dominican Constitution and others that contravene decisions already issued by the Constitutional Court (TC).
In his opinion, President Abinader has a real will to move forward with a modern legislation, one that also provides mechanisms to protect the rights of people and the media.
The president of the Dominican Newspaper Society (SDD) said the society members acted because the law as passed contains clauses that violate constitutional rights and others that contravene decisions already issued by the Constitutional Court (TC).
Maldonado indicated that the lawyers are working on the content of the law and that they are reconciling all the positions that the different sectors have presented.
He perceives that President Luis Abinader has the will to solve the conflict created around Law 1-24 and that he understands that due to his democratic spirit, he does not deserve to be remembered with a law of that nature.
The Constitution has guarantees to apply freedom of speech rights, but the limits need to be established, the framework for the judges to use when hearing a defamation lawsuit.
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Sintesis 13 April 2024
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16 April 2024