Under the new penal code district attorneys will no longer be able to order the imprisonment of a criminal suspect. Resolution 14873-2003 comes from the Attorney General’s office, which says that this common practice is unconstitutional and violates the legal rights of citizens. This includes people detained in police round-ups, as in the case of the recent operation to find illegal weapons held on the eve of the 11 November general strike. The only exception is when a criminal is caught “red-handed”, otherwise a judge would have to decide whether the case merits detention. The second clause of Article 8 of the Dominican Constitutions reads: “No one can be put in prison of deprived of their liberty without the express order of a competent judge, except in flagrante delicto cases.” This latest resolution also grants suspects the right to maintain silence in the presence of the police until a lawyer is present. El Caribe newspaper quotes judicial experts Candido Simon Polanco, who welcomed the move, as saying, “If this is applied, it will prevent many arbitrary actions, typical of a country where the rules are not clear.” While recognizing the authorities’ limited capacity to implement this resolution, Polanco was confident that it would take effect shortly. As a member of the American Human Rights Committee, Polanco said that the practice of police round-ups in poor neighborhoods will also be covered by the new measure. “The Constitution establishes that people are presumed innocent? when a round-up is carried out, the presumption is that everyone in the area is suspected of a crime.” He added that the drug enforcement body DCNI, the police special investigations unit DNI, and the armed forces’ investigations units should also be included in this resolution. In addition, the AG’s office announced that telephone surveillance will not be admissible as legal evidence if undertaken without a judge’s authorization. The Listin Diario newspaper welcomes the development, saying the Supreme Court is “moving with the times” and that a suspect’s right to defense is a “sacred institution within the judicial system, based on the principle that a suspect is not assumed to be guilty, and that all suspects are considered innocent until proven otherwise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Under the new penal code district attorneys will no longer be able to order the imprisonment of a criminal suspect. Resolution 14873-2003 comes from the Attorney General’s office, which says that this common practice is unconstitutional and violates the legal rights of citizens. This includes people detained in police round-ups, as in the case of … <\/p>\n