Spanish
Santo Domingo.- Senator Santiago José Zorrilla, president of the Special Bicameral Commission of the National Congress in charge of studying the Penal Code project, assured this Wednesday that this piece will be approved before the current legislature concludes, on July 26. An initiative that seeks to modernize the Dominican penal system, which lacks the necessary tools to face the crimes of this century.
So far, the commission has agreed on some 205 articles out of a total of 419, in about five matrices that are being analyzed and discussed by some 32 legislators, along with a body of advisors who accompany them.
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Deputies and senators announced that Article 14 of the current Penal Code will remain the same, which establishes that the Dominican State, the National District, the municipalities, the city councils, the boards of the municipal districts, and the churches will not have criminal liability as legal entities. To this is added the exclusion of political parties, a proposal that did not prosper in previous discussions. Another element highlighted by the legislators is that the proposal for corruption crimes to expire 20 years after being committed will be maintained. Therefore, the Dominican justice system will not be able to investigate or criminally punish the administrative offenses that have been committed after two decades have passed. The current Dominican Republic Penal Code was enacted as Decree Law No. 2274 of 1884, replacing the 1845 Penal Code, then called the Penal and Military Procedure Code, which was based on the French legal model, known as the Napoleonic code. In its general part, the Penal Code of 1884 classifies offenses into crimes, felonies, and contraventions, and establishes different categories of penalties: public works, major imprisonment, minor imprisonment, and simple police penalties. In its special part, it contemplates the main crimes against the physical and sexual integrity of persons, such as homicide, robbery, and rape. Originally, the death penalty was contemplated in cases of homicide; however, this was abolished after the constitutional reform of 1966.
