President Luis Abinader urged the Senate to decide the second majority’s representative in the National Council of the Magistracy (CNM). The Presidency, Senate, Chamber of Deputies and Supreme Court of Justice have yet to name their representatives to the eight-member council.
The CNM is responsible for choosing the judges of the higher courts. The CNM needs to meet to replace all five members of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and four members of the Constitutional Court (TC).
President Luis Abinader is who convenes the CNM, but its members need to be confirmed in the Senate before doing so.
The head of state presides the body. The other members are the president of the Senate, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, a senator from an opposition party that corresponds to the second majority, a deputy corresponding to the second majority, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, and a Supreme Court of Justice judge and the Attorney General of the Republic.
At the Constitutional Court, the terms of judges Hermógenes Acosta de los Santos, Katia Miguelina Jiménez Martínez, Ana Isabel Bonilla Hernández and Wilson S. Gómez Ramírez, expire in December 2020.
The CNM also needs to assess whether judge Francisco Ortega Polanco continues at the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ).
So far, the known members of the CNM are President Luis Abinader, Senate president Eduardo Estrella (Dominicans for Change + PRM), Chamber of Deputies president Alfredo Pacheco (PRM), Supreme Court president Luis Henry Molina, Supreme Court judge Nancy Salcedo Fernández (named on 1 October) and Attorney General Miriam German Brito.
The PLD has yet to name the party’s representative as the second majority in the Chamber of Deputies. However, it is not clear who will represent the second majority in the Senate. The parties that are disputing the second seat for the Senate are the former ruling party, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), the People’s Force (FP) and the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC).
Read more:
El Caribe
Listin Diario
El Dia
1 October 2020