Caribbean & Central America - January 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The major corruption scandal involving some senior members of the Dominican Republic (DR)’s national judiciary, which broke at the end of last year [RC-15-12], continues to dominate headlines in the DR ahead of the 15 May general elections. With the supreme court (SCJ) president, Mariano Germán Mejía, increasingly implicated, along with other officials, the government led by President Danilo Medina is reiterating calls for a major judicial reform to completely overhaul the sector.

The scandal, which involves the alleged existence of a corruption ring in the national judiciary which manipulated criminal judicial processes in exchange for cash, has remained the focus of public attention since the start of the year when, in December 2015, the suspended judge, Awilda Reyes Beltré, ratified the remarks she made that lifted the lid on it. Reyes had accused fellow magistrate, Francisco Arias Valera, of pressuring her on behalf of Justice Mejía into issuing a favourable ruling to benefit Erinson de los Santos Solís, a local councillor for Pedro Brand, a municipality in Santo Domingo city, accused of leading a group of local hitmen.

Reyes, who is now under investigation, has ratified her comments - originally made to local civil society organisation, Participación Ciudadana (PC) - that Arias and Germán had first threatened her and then offered her money (which she initially accepted but then returned) to release De los Santos on bail. She has also said that afterwards, Germán pressured her to assume full responsibility for De los Santos’ release, and to resign in order to draw a line over the case. Reyes’s revelations led the judicial council (CPJ) to strip Arias of his post in order that he could face investigation. But Arias, who was quizzed by investigators from the specialised anti-corruption prosecution office (Pepca) on 6 January, has refused to collaborate with the investigations, preferring to speak only before a judge once his case goes to trial.

That same day the attorney general’s office announced the arrest of the deputy prosecutor for the national district, Isidro Vásquez Peña, for prevarication, extortion and illicit association charges in relation to another case. These developments led the PC and other civil society groups to stage a protest outside the SCJ on 7 January to commemorate the national day of the judiciary. Forming a ‘human chain’ outside the SCJ building, protesters demanded Germán’s resignation so that he could face trial, as well as that of Attorney General Francisco Domínguez Brito for failing to combat effectively corruption within the public ministry.

Germán responded by dedicating an address on the national day of the judiciary, attended by President Medina and other officials, to ask people “not to blame the judiciary” for all of the justice system’s fallacies; and to call for a broad national dialogue between “all responsible actors” in order to find a way out of the current crisis. Domínguez echoed these calls during his speech, in which he insisted on the need for a “deep” judicial reform to combat entrenched corruption and impunity. Domínguez went on to express the government’s full backing for Germán, who shares “the government’s commitment to overcome” the judiciary’s crisis and promote a major reform that has “already begun and must continue”. Medina, who is standing for re-election in May, wisely chose to steer clear of the issue of how best to root out corruption in the judiciary. But he could soon be drawn into the subject, whether he likes it or not, after Luis Abinader, the presidential candidate of the opposition Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM), challenged Medina to hold a public debate on just “how honest” his administration has been and just how far his commitment to fight corruption goes.

• Adocco’s opinion

On 11 January, Julio César de la Rosa Tiburcio, the coordinator of the Alianza Dominicana Contra la Corrupción (Adocco), a local anti-corruption organisation, said in the wake of the scandal affecting the Dominican Republic’s national judiciary system that “Dominican Justice is suffering the worst crisis in its history”. De la Rosa said that the latest scandal and the level of corruption and impunity exposed in the judiciary is “worrisome and alarming”. Remarking on the situation of supreme court (SCJ) president, Mariano Germán Mejía, De la Rosa declared it “inconceivable” for the SCJ president to be involved in such a case and not face investigation, and called for his impeachment by the national congress.