Deputies and senators have a lot of work to do. With the Dominican Congress getting back to work on 27th of February, news sources highlighted the dozens of major bills languishing in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate for months, even years.
Alfredo Pacheco, the head of the Chamber of Deputies told reporters from the Listin Diario that his chamber had a “very tight schedule” and that he was going to have them session “nine more times this month.”
The bills pending include legislation that deals with everything from the National Police to the amount to be levied for traffic fines. And there are two proposals whose continuing delay is nearly comic if it did not strike so close to home. One of these proposals calls for the elimination of the two-car tax exemption for legislators, and the other one calls for just one exemption and for a vehicle of a certain price. Newspapers and television shows have commented that Ferraris and Lamborghinis have been imported by deputies but were actually purchased for other persons.
The Executive Branch added to the workload submitting new bills to amend the Hydrocarbons Law and a draft for the Public Trust Law. There is the controversial Extinction of Domain Bill that is described as essential to combat corruption in government.
And there is the Penal Code, that has been debated in Congress for more than 20 years with little advances to show. The present legislature has made the Penal Code more controversial by reinstating military courts to judge criminal actions by the military and a clause allowing government corruption cases to prescribe in 20 years.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
El Caribe
7 March 2022