Dominican Republic 2015

The territory of the Dominican Republic is inalienable. It is composed of:

1. Customary international law
   The eastern part of the Island of Santo Domingo, its adjacent islands and the combination of natural elemental and its marine geomorphology. Its irreducible land borders are fixed by the Borderland Treaty of 1929 and its Revision Protocol of 1936. The national authorities safeguard the care, protection and maintenance of the markers that identify the plot of the line of border demarcation, in accordance with the resolution of the borderland treaty and the norms of International Law.
2. The territorial ocean, the corresponding ocean floor and sub ocean floor. The extension of the territorial ocean, its baselines, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and the continental platform shall be established and regulated by the organic law or by agreements on the delineation of marine borders, in the most favorable terms permitted by Maritime Law.
3. Customary international law
   The air space over the national territory, the electromagnetic spectrum and the space where it acts. The law shall regulate the use of these spaces in accordance with the norms of International Law.

Security, economic, social, and touristic development of the Borderland Zone, its transportation, communication, and productive integration, as well as the spread of national and cultural values of the Dominican people are declared to be of supreme and permanent national interest.

1. The public powers shall devise, execute, and prioritize policies and programs of public investment in social and infrastructure works in order to secure these objectives;
2. The systems of acquisition and transference of real estate in the Borderlands Zone shall be subject to specific legal requirements that favor the property of Dominicans and the national interest.

The sustainable use and the protection of borderlands rivers, the use of the international highway and the preservation of the borderland stations using geodesic points are ruled by the principles established in the Revision Protocol of the year 1936 from the Border Treaty of 1929 and the Treaty of Peace, Perpetual Friendship and Arbitrage of 1929 endorsed by the Republic of Haiti.

For the government and the administration of the State, the territory of the Republic is politically divided in a National District and the regions, provinces, and municipalities determined by law. The regions shall be composed of the provinces and municipalities established by law.

The city of Santo Domingo de Guzman is the National District, capital of the Republic and seat of the national government.

The high watersheds of the rivers and the zones of endemic, native and migratory biodiversity, are subjects of special protection by the public powers in order to guarantee their management and preservation as fundamental assets of the Nation. The rivers, lakes lagoons, beaches and national coasts belong to the public domain and are freely accessible, always respecting the right to private property. The law shall regulate the conditions, forms and rights in which individuals shall access the enjoyment or management of these areas.

The following are Dominicans:

1. The sons and daughters of a Dominican mother or father;
2. Those who enjoyed Dominican nationality before the entry into effect of this Constitution;
3. People born in the national territory, with the exception of the sons and daughters of foreign members of diplomatic and consular legations, of foreigners that find themselves in transit or reside illegally in Dominican territory. All foreigners are considered people in transit as defined in Dominican laws.
4. Those born abroad to a Dominican mother or father, notwithstanding having acquired by the place of birth a nationality different from those of their parents. Once having reached the age of eighteen, they may demonstrate their desire, before the appropriate authority, to assume dual nationality or to renounce one of theirs;
5. Requirements for naturalization
   Those who enter into marriage with a Dominican, as long as they choose the nationality of their spouses and fulfill the requirements established by law;
6. The direct descendants of Dominicans residing abroad;
7. Requirements for naturalization
   Naturalized people, in accordance with the conditions and processes required by law.

Foreigners may become naturalized in accordance with the law, they may not vote for the presidency or vice-presidency of the powers of the State, nor are they obligated to take up arms against their State of origin. The law shall regulate other limitations on naturalized people.

The ability of Dominicans to acquire a foreign nationality is recognized. The acquisition of another nationality does not imply the loss of Dominican nationality.

All Dominicans who are eighteen years of age and those who are or have been married, even though they have not reached this age, enjoy citizenship.

The following are rights of citizens:

1. Restrictions on voting
   To elect to and be eligible for posts established by the present Constitution;
2. Referenda
   To decide on matters that are proposed to them by referendum;
3. Legislative initiatives by citizens, Initiation of general legislation
   To exercise the right of popular, legislative, and municipal initiative, under the conditions established by this Constitution and the law;
4. Right of petition
   To formulate petitions to the public powers in order to petition measures in the public interest and to obtain a response from the authorities in the period established by the laws passed on this subject;
5. To denounce errors committed by public officials in the performance of their duties.

The rights of citizenship are lost by irrevocable condemnation in cases of treason, espionage, conspiracy as well as for taking up arms and for aiding or participating in attempts of deliberate damages against the interests of the Republic.

The rights of citizenship are suspended in cases of:

1. Irrevocable condemnation to a criminal sentence, until that sentence is over;
2. Legally pronounced judicial interdiction, while it lasts;
3. The acceptance in Dominican territory of offices or public duties for a foreign government or State without prior authorization from the Executive Power;
4. Violation of the conditions by which naturalization was authorized.

Foreigners have the same rights and duties as nationals in the Dominican Republic, with the exceptions and limitations that this Constitution and the laws establish; consequently:

1. They may not participate in political activities within the national territory, unless in exercising the right to suffrage of their country of origin;
2. They have the responsibility of registering themselves in the Book of Foreigners, in accordance with the law;
3. International law
   They may resort to diplomatic protection after having exhausted the resources and processes before the national jurisdiction, except as provided international conventions.

The Dominican Republic is a State member of the international community, open to cooperation and tied to the norms of international law, consequently:

1. It recognizes and applies the norms of international law, general and American, in the method in which its public powers have adopted them;
2. Legal status of treaties
   The norms in effect from international ratified agreements shall rule in the internal realm, once published in an official manner;
3. The international relations of the Dominican Republic are based and ruled by the affirmation and promotion of its national values and interests, respect for human rights and international law;
4. Reference to fraternity/solidarity
   In equality of conditions with other States, the Dominican Republic accepts an international judicial system that guarantees respect of fundamental rights, peace, justice, and political, social, economic and cultural development of nations. It promises to act on the international, regional, and national levels in a manner compatible with national interests, the peaceful coexistence between peoples and the duties of solidarity with all nations.
5. The Dominican Republic shall promote and favor integration with the nations of America, toward the end of strengthening a community of nations that defends the interests of the region. The State may enter into international treaties in order to promote the common development of the nations, that safeguard the well-being of the peoples and the collective security of their inhabitants, and in order to confer supranational organizations the required abilities to participate in processes of integration;
6. Protection of environment, Reference to fraternity/solidarity
   It declares itself in favor of economic solidarity between the countries of America and supports all initiatives in defense of its basic products, raw materials, and biodiversity.

The Dominican Republic shall have representatives before international parliaments with which it has signed agreements that recognize its participation and representation.

In order to be a representative before international parliaments one must be Dominican in full exercise of civil and political rights and responsibilities and have reached an age of 25.

The right to life is inviolable from conception until death. The death penalty may not be established, pronounced, nor applied in any case.

The State bases itself on respect for the dignity of the person and organizes itself for the real and effective protection of the fundamental rights that are inherent to it. The dignity of the human being is sacred, innate, and inviolable; its respect and protection constitute an essential responsibility of the public powers.

All people are born free and equal before the law, receive the same protection and treatment from institutions, authorities, and other people and enjoy the same rights liberties and opportunities, without any discrimination for reasons of gender, color, age, disability, nationality, family ties, language, religions, political or philosophical opinion, social or personal condition. Consequently:

1. The Republic condemns all privilege and situation that tends to fracture the equality of Dominicans, between whom differences beyond those resulting from their talents or virtues should not exist;
2. Mentions of social class
   No entity of the Republic may give titles of nobility nor hereditary distinctions;
3. The State should promote judicial and administrative conditions so that equality may be real and effective and shall adopt methods to prevent and combat discrimination, marginalization, vulnerability and exclusion;
4. Equality regardless of gender
   Women and men are equal before the law. Any act that has the objective or result of diminishing or annulling the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of fundamental rights of woman and men in conditions of equality is prohibited.
5. Second chamber representation quotas, First chamber representation quotas
   The State should promote and guarantee the equal participation of women and men in candidate lists to the offices of popular election for the instances of guidance and decision in the public sphere, in the administration of justice, and in the State-controlled bodies.

All people have a right to liberty and personal security. Accordingly:

1. Protection from unjustified restraint
   No one may be sent to prison or denied his liberty without an order caused and written by the appropriate judge, except in cases of flagrante delicto;
2. Every authority that exercises measures to deprive liberty is obligated to identify himself.
3. All people, at the moment of their detention, shall be informed of their rights;
4. Right to counsel
   All detained people have the right to communicate immediately with their families, lawyer, or trusted people, who have the right to be informed of the location of the detained person and of the reasons for the detention;
5. Protection from unjustified restraint
   All people deprived of their liberty shall be submitted to the appropriate judicial authority within forty-eight hours of their detention or freed. The appropriate judicial authority shall notify the interested person, within the same time period, of the decision dictated to that effect.
6. All people deprived of their liberty without cause or without the legal formalities or outside of cases provided for by law, shall be immediately freed at his request or at that of any other person.
7. All people may be freed once the imposed penalty has been completed or an order for freedom has been given by the appropriate authority;
8. No one may be submitted to methods of coercion unless by his own making;
9. The methods of coercion, restrictive of personal liberty, are of special character and their application should be proportional to the danger that they attempt to guard against;
10. Rights of debtors
    Physical constraint may not be established for debts that do not come from an infraction against the penal laws;
11. Every person that has a detained person under their guard is obligated to present him as soon as is required by the appropriate authority;
12. The transfer of any detained person from a prison to another location without an order written and caused by the appropriate authority is strictly prohibited;
13. Protection from ex post facto laws, Principle of no punishment without law
    No one may be condemned or punished for actions or omissions that at the time of taking place did not constitute a criminal or administrative infraction;
14. No one is criminally responsible for that done by another;
15. Principle of no punishment without law
    No one can be obligated to do that which the law does not order nor kept from doing that which the law does not prohibit. The law is equal for all: it may only order that which is just and useful for the community and it may not prohibit more than what is harmful.
16. Punishments that deprive freedom and the means of security shall be oriented towards reeducation and social reinsertion of the condemned person and may not consist of forced work;
17. In the exercise of the sanctioning power established by law, the Public Administration may not impose sanctions that implicate the deprivation of liberty in a direct or subsidiary form.

Slavery, serfdom, and the trade and traffic of persons are prohibited in all their forms.

All people have the right to have their physical, psychic, moral integrity and the right to live without violence respected. They shall have the protection of the state in cases of threat, risk, or violation of the same. Consequently:

1. Prohibition of corporal punishment, Prohibition of cruel treatment, Prohibition of torture
   No one may be submitted to punishments, tortures, or degrading proceedings that imply the loss or decrease of his health or of his physical or psychic integrity;
2. Familial and gender based violence in any of its forms is condemned. The State shall guarantee through the law the adoption of necessary methods to prevent, sanction, and eradicate violence against women;
3. Reference to science
   No one may be submitted, without prior consent to experiments or proceedings that do not conform to internationally recognized scientific and bioethical norms, nor to examinations of medical proceedings, except when his life is in danger.

All people have the right to the free development of their personality, without more limitations than those imposed by judicial order and the rights of others.

All people have the right to privacy. The respect and non-interference into private and family life, the home, and private correspondence are guaranteed. The right to honor, good name, and one’s own image are recognized. All authorities or individuals who violate them are obligated to compensate or repair them in accordance with the law. Thus:

1. Inalienable rights
   The home and domicile and all private premises of the person are inviolable, except in ordered cases, in accordance with the law, by the appropriate judicial authority or in cases of flagrante delicto;
2. Right to information
   All persons have the right to access to the information and facts about them or their property that reside in official or private registers, as well as to know the destination and the uses of the same, with the limitations fixed by law. Treatment of personal facts or information or that regarding property shall be made respecting the principles of quality, lawfulness, loyalty, security, and finality. One may solicit the updating, oppose the treatment, rectification, or destruction of that information that illegitimately affects his rights from before the appropriate judicial authority;
3. Telecommunications, Regulation of evidence collection, Inalienable rights
   The inviolability of private correspondence, documents, or messages in physical, digital, electronic, or all other formats is recognized. They may only be taken, intercepted, or searched by order of an appropriate judicial authority through legal proceeding in the substantiation of matters that are made public in the case and preserving the secrecy of private matters that are not related to the corresponding process. The secrecy of telegraphic, telephonic, cable, electronic, teleprocessing communication or that established by another mode is inviolable, unless by authorities authorized by a judge or appropriate authority, in accordance with the law;
4. The management, use, or processing of data and information of official character gathered by authorities tasked with the prevention prosecution, and punishment of crime may only be processed or communicated to public registers, after the opening of a trial has intervened, in accordance with the law.

The State guarantees the freedom of conscience and religion, subject to the public order and respect to good customs.

All persons that find themselves in the national territory have the right to travel, reside, and leave freely from the same, in accordance with legal dispositions.

1. Extradition procedure
   No Dominican may be deprived of the right to enter the national territory. Nor may he be expulsed or exiled from the same, except in the case of extradition pronounced by an appropriate judicial authority, in accordance with the law and international agreements in effect on the subject;
2. Terrorism, Customary international law, Protection of stateless persons
   All persons have the right to apply for asylum in the national territory in the case of persecution for political reasons. Those who find themselves in the condition of asylum shall enjoy protection that guarantees the full exercise of their rights, in accordance with the international agreements, norms, and instruments signed and ratified by the Dominican Republic. Terrorism, crimes against humanity, administrative corruption, and transnational crimes are not considered political crimes.

All persons have the right to associate with legal purposes, in accordance with the law.

All persons have the right to meet, without prior permission, with lawful and peaceful purposes, in accordance with the law.

All persons have the right to freely express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions by any medium, without having allowed for prior censorship.

1. Right to information
   All persons have the right to information. This right encompasses searching for, researching, receiving, and spreading information of all types, of a public character, by any medium, channel or way, in accordance with the determinations of the Constitution and the law.
2. All information media have free access to the official and private sources of information of public interest, in accordance with the law.
3. The professional secret and the conscience clause of the journalist are protected by the Constitution and the law.
4. All persons have the right to reply and to correction when they feel damaged by information that has been spread. This right shall be exercised in accordance with the law.
5. The law guarantees the equal and plural access of all the social and political sectors to the means of communication that are property of the State.

The State recognizes and guarantees free enterprise, commerce, and industry. All persons have the right to freely dedicate themselves to the economic activity of their preference, without more limitations than those prescribed in this Constitution and those established by the law.

1. Monopolies shall not be permitted, except in favor of the state. The creation and organization of these monopolies shall be made by law. The State favors and safeguards free and loyal competition and shall adopt the necessary methods to avoid the harmful and restrictive effects of monopoly and of the abuse of the dominant position, establishing by law exceptions for cases of national security.
2. Economic plans
   The State may dictate methods to regulate the economy and to promote national plans for competitiveness and to spur the integral development of the country
3. The State may grant concessions for the time and the form determined by law, when they are about the exploitation of natural resources or the extension of public services, always ensuring the existence of adequate remuneration or compensation in public interest and for the environmental equilibrium.

The State recognizes and guarantees the right of property. Property has a social function and implies obligations. All persons have the right to the full use, enjoyment, and disposal of their assets.

1. Emergency provisions, Protection from expropriation
   No one may be deprived of his property, unless for a justified cause of public utility or social interest, previous payment of its just value determined by an agreement between the parties or the ruling of the appropriate court, in accordance with that established by law. In the case of the declaration of a State of Emergency or of Defense, the compensation may not be made previously.
2. The State shall promote, in accordance with the law, access to property, especially to titled real estate.
3. Provisions for wealth redistribution
   The dedication of land to useful ends and the gradual elimination of the system of large estates is declared to be in the social interest. Promoting agrarian reform and the integration of the rural, farming population into the process of national development in an effective way through stimulation and cooperation for the renewal of their methods of agricultural production and their technological training is a principal objective of the social policy of the State.
4. There shall not be confiscation of the assets of physical or judicial persons for political reasons.
5. Drugs, alcohol, and illegal substances
   The assets of physical or judicial persons, either nationals or foreigners, having their origin in illicit acts committed against the public patrimony, as well as those used in or coming from the illegal traffic of narcotics and psychotropic substances or relative to transnational organized crime and all crimes provided for in the penal laws may only be the object of confiscation or decommission through definitive ruling.
6. The law shall establish the regime of the administration and disposal of assets seized and abandoned in criminal processes and in cases of forfeiture of domain, provided for in the judicial order.

The right to the exclusive property of scientific, literary, and artistic works, inventions, and innovations, names, brands, distinctive marks, and other productions of the human intellect for the time are recognized and protected, in the form and with the limitations established by law.

All persons have the right to enjoy quality goods and services, and objective, true, and opportune information about the content and characteristics of the products and services that they use or consume, under the previsions and norms established by law.

The State shall promote research and the transference of technology for the production of foods and primary materials of agricultural origin, with the goal of increasing productivity and guaranteeing food security.

The family is the basis of society and the fundamental space for the integral development of people. It is formed by natural or legal ties, by the free decision of a man and a woman to enter into marriage or by the responsible willingness to conform to it.

1. Provision for matrimonial equality
   All persons have the right to form a family, in whose formation and development the woman and man enjoy equal rights and duties and owe one another mutual understanding and reciprocal respect.
2. The State shall guarantee the protection of the family. The good of the family in unalienable and unattachable, in accordance with the law.
3. The State shall promote and protect the organization of the family on the basis of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman. The law shall establish the requirements to enter into it, the formalities of its celebration, its personal and patrimonial effects, the causes of separation or dissolution, and the regime of the property, rights, and duties between the spouses.
4. International law
   Religious marriages shall have civil effects in terms established by law, without prejudice to that dictated in international treaties.
5. The singular and stable union between a man and a woman, free from matrimonial impediment, that form a real home, creates rights and duties in their personal and patrimonial relationships, in accordance with the law.
6. Maternity, whether the social condition or the civil state of the woman, shall enjoy the protection of the public powers and causes the right to official assistance in the case of need.
7. All persons have the right to have their personality, their own first name, and the surnames of their father and mother recognized, and to know the identities of the same.
8. All persons have the right from their birth to be inscribed without payment in the civil register or in the book of foreigners and to obtain the public documents that prove their identity, in accordance with the law.
9. Rights of children
   All sons and daughters are equal under the law, have equal rights and duties, and shall enjoy the same opportunities for social, spiritual, and physical development. All mentions of the nature of parentage are prohibited in the civil registers and in all identity documents.
10. Rights of children, Rights or duties of parents
    The State promotes responsible paternity and maternity. The father and the mother, even after separation and divorce, have the shared and non-renounceable duty to feed, raise, train, educate, support, and provide safety and assistance to their sons and daughters. The law shall establish the necessary and appropriate methods to guarantee the effect of these obligations.
11. The State recognizes work at home as an economic activity that creates aggregate value and produces social richness and well-being, therefore it shall be incorporated into the formulation and execution of public and social policies.
12. The State shall guarantee, through the law, safe and effective policies for adoption.
13. State support for children
    The value of young people as strategic actors in the development of the Nation is recognized. The State guarantees and promotes the effective exercise of their rights, through policies and programs that assure, in a permanent manner, their participation in all spheres of national life, and in particular, their training and access to first employment.

The family, society, and State shall give preference to the superior interests of male and female children and adolescents, and shall have the obligation to assist and protect them in order to guarantee their harmonious and integral development and the full exercise of their fundamental rights, in accordance with this Constitution and the laws. Consequently:

1. The eradication of child labor and all types of mistreatment or violence against minors is declared of the highest national interest. Male and female children and adolescents shall be protected by the State against all forms of abandonment, kidnapping, states of vulnerability, abuse or physical, psychological, moral or sexual abuse, commercial, labor, economic exploitation or risky jobs.
2. The active and progressive participation of male and female children and adolescents in family, community, and social life shall be promoted.
3. Adolescents are active subjects to the process of development. The State, with the participation in solidarity of families and society, shall create opportunities to stimulate their productive movement towards adult life.

The family, society, and the State shall come together for the protection and the assistance of elderly people and shall promote their integration into active community life. The State shall guarantee the services of integral social security and food subsidies in the case of poverty.

The State shall promote, protect, and ensure people with disabilities’ enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, in conditions of equality as well as in the full and autonomous exercise of their abilities. The State shall adopt the positive means necessary to foster their family, community, social, labor, economic, cultural and political integration.

All persons have the right to dignified housing with basic essential services. The State should determine the necessary conditions to make effective this right and promote plans for housing and human settlements in the social interest. Legal access to titled real estate is a fundamental priority of public policy and the advancement of housing.

All persons have the right to social security. The State shall stimulate the progressive development of social security in order to ensure universal access to adequate protection in sickness, disability, unemployment, and old age.

All persons have the right to integral health. Consequently:

1. Right to water
   The State should safeguard the protection of the health of all persons, access to potable water, improvement of nutrition, sanitation services, hygienic conditions, environmental cleanliness, as well as procure means for the prevention and treatment of all sicknesses, ensuring access to quality medication and giving medical and hospital assistance for free to those who need it.
2. International law
   The State shall guarantee, through legislation and public policies, the exercise of the economic and social rights of the low-income population and, consequently, shall lend its protection and assistance to vulnerable groups and sectors, shall fight social vices with the appropriate means and with the aid of international agreements and organizations.

Work is a right, a duty, and a social function that is exercised with the protection and assistance of the State. It is an essential purpose of the State to foment dignified and paid employment. The public powers shall promote the dialogue and agreement between workers, employers, and the State. Consequently:

1. The State guarantees the equality and equity of women and men in the exercise of the right to work.
2. No one may impede the work of others nor obligate them to work against their will.
3. Right to join trade unions
   Union freedom, social security, collective negotiation, professional training, respect for one’s physical and intellectual abilities, privacy, and personal dignity are, among others, the basic rights of male and female workers.
4. Right to join trade unions
   Union organization is free and democratic, should adjust itself to its statutes, and be compatible with the principles inscribed in this Constitution and the law.
5. All kinds of discrimination in access to employment or during the extension of services are prohibited, excluding the exceptions provided for by law with the goal of protecting the worker
6. Right to strike
   In order to resolve peaceful work conflicts, the right of workers to strike and of employers to halt private enterprises are recognized, always that they are exercised with respect to the law, which shall dictate the means to guarantee the maintenance of public services or those of public use
7. Right to rest and leisure, Right to reasonable standard of living
   The law shall dictate, according to what is required by the general interest, the workdays, the days of rest and vacations, the minimum wage and its forms of payment, the participation of nationals in all work, the participation of workers in the benefits of the business and, in general, all the minimum means that are considered necessary in favor of workers, including special regulations for informal work in the home and any other form of human work. The State shall make use of the means at its disposal so that workers may acquire the tools and instruments that are indispensable to their work.
8. Right to safe work environment
   It is the obligation of all employers to guarantee their workers adequate conditions of safety, health standards, hygiene, and work environment. The State shall adopt means to promote the creation of petitions integrated by employers and workers for the attainment of these goals
9. Right to just remuneration
   All workers have the right to a wage that is just and sufficient to permit them to live with dignity and cover the basic material, social, and intellectual needs of themselves and their families. The payment of equal wages for work of equal value is guaranteed, without discrimination by gender or of another type and in identical conditions of ability, efficiency, and seniority.
10. The application of labor norms in relation to the nationalization of work is of high interest. The law shall determine the percentage of foreigners that may lend their services to a business as salaried workers.

All persons have the right to an integral education that is of quality, permanent, equal in conditions and opportunities, and without more limitations than those derived from their aptitudes, vocation, and aspirations. Consequently:

1. Reference to science
   The goal of education is the integral formation of the human being for the length of his entire life, and should be oriented toward the development of his creative potential and his ethical values. It seeks access to knowledge, science, skill, and the other assets and values of culture.
2. Rights or duties of parents
   The family is responsible for the education of its members and has the right to choose the type of education for its minor children
3. Free education, Compulsory education
   The State guarantees free public education and declares it obligatory in initial, basic, and intermediate levels. The offer for the initial level shall be defined in the law. Superior education in the public system shall be financed by the State, guaranteeing a distribution of resources that is proportional to the educational offer of the regions, in accordance with that which the law establishes.
4. The State shall safeguard the free nature and quality of general education, the fulfillment of its goals and moral, intellectual, and physical formation of the educated. It has the obligation to offer the number of hours of instruction that assure the achievement of the educational goals.
5. The State recognizes the exercise of the teaching career as fundamental for the full development of the education and of the Dominican nation and, consequently, it is its obligation to tend to the professionalization, the stability, and the dignifying of teachers.
6. The eradication of illiteracy and the education of people with special needs and with exceptional abilities are obligations of the State.
7. Right to academic freedom
   The State should safeguard the quality of superior education and shall finance public centers and universities, in accordance with that established by the law. It shall guarantee university autonomy and academic freedom.
8. The universities shall choose their leadership and shall be regulated by their own statues, in accordance with the law.
9. Reference to science, Protection of environment
   The State shall define policies to promote and incentivize research, science, technology, and innovation that favor sustainable development, human well-being, competitiveness, institutional strengthening, and the preservation of the environment. Businesses and private institutions that invest toward these ends shall be supported.
10. Reference to science
    The investment of the State in education, science and technology should be growing and sustained, in correspondence with the level of the macroeconomic performance of the country. The law shall allocate the minimum amounts and the percentages that correspond to the specified investment. Transferences of funds allotted for the financing of the development of these areas may not be made in any case.
11. Telecommunications, Radio, Television
    The means of social communication, public and private, should contribute to citizen formation. The State guarantees the public services of radio, television, and networks of libraries and computers, with the goal of permitting universal access to information. Educational centers shall incorporate the knowledge and application of new technologies and their innovations, according to the requirements established by law.
12. Reference to science
    The State guarantees the freedom on instruction, recognizes private initiative in the creation of educational institutions and services and stimulates the development of science and technology, in accordance with the law.
13. With the end of forming citizens who are conscious of their rights and duties, in all public and private educational institutions instruction in social and civic formation, teaching of the Constitution, fundamental rights and guarantees, national values and the principles of peaceful coexistence shall be obligatory.

All persons have the right to participate and act with freedom and without censure in the cultural life of the Nation, to full access and enjoyment of cultural assets and services, of scientific advances and literary and artistic production. The State shall protect the moral and material interests over the works of authors and inventors. Consequently:

1. It shall establish policies that promote and stimulate, in the national and international spheres, the diverse scientific, artistic, and popular manifestations and expressions of the Dominican culture and shall incentivize and support the efforts of people, institutions, and communities that develop or finance cultural plans and activities.
2. Freedom of expression
   It shall guarantee freedom of expression and cultural creation as well as equal opportunity for access to culture and shall promote cultural diversity and international exchange.
3. It shall recognize the value of cultural, individual and collective identity, its importance for complete and sustainable development, economic growth, innovation, and human well-being, through the support and diffusion of scientific research and cultural production. It shall protect the dignity and integrity of cultural workers.
4. The cultural patrimony of the Nation, material and immaterial, is under the safeguarding of the State, which shall guarantee its protection, enrichment, conservation, restoration, and place of value. The assets of cultural patrimony of the Nation, whose property is State owned or has been acquired by the State, are inalienable and unattachable, and that ownership imprescriptible. The patrimonial assets in private hands and the underwater assets of the cultural patrimony shall be equally protected from illicit exportation and plunder. The law shall regulate the acquisition of the same.

All people have the right to physical education, sport, and recreation. It is the responsibility of the State, in collaboration with teaching centers and sports organizations to foment, incentivize, and support the practice and diffusion of these activities. Accordingly:

1. The State accepts sport and recreation as public policies of education and health and guarantees physical education and school sports at all levels of the educational system, in accordance with the law.
2. The law shall make available the resources, stimuli, and incentives for the promotion of sports for all males and females, the integral assistance of sports players, support for highly competitive sports, to sporting programs and activities in the country and abroad.

The State recognizes collective and diffuse rights and interests, which are exercised with conditions and limitations established by law. Consequently, it protects:

1. Protection of environment
   The conservation of ecological balance, of fauna and flora.
2. Protection of environment
   The protection of the environment.
3. Right to culture, Reference to art
   The preservation of the cultural, historical, urban, artistic, architectural, and archaeological patrimony.

Preventing contamination, protecting and maintaining the environment for the enjoyment of present and future generations constitute duties of the State. Consequently:

1. All people have the right, both individually and collectively, to the use and sustainable enjoyment of natural resources, to live in an environment that is healthy, ecologically balanced, and adequate for the development and preservation of the different forms of life, scenery and nature.
2. The introduction, development, production, tenancy, commercialization, transportation, storage, and use of chemical, biological, nuclear, and agro-chemical weapons that are internationally banned is prohibited, as well as nuclear residues and toxic and dangerous waste.
3. The State shall promote, in the public and private sector, the use of alternative and non-contaminating technologies and energies.
4. In the contracts made by the State or in the permits that it grants that involve the use and exploitation of natural resources, it shall include consideration of the obligation to conserve the ecological equilibrium, the access to technology and its transference, as well as to reestablish the environment to its natural state, if it were to be changed.
5. The public powers shall prevent and control the factors of environmental deterioration, shall impose legal sanctions, the objective responsibility for damages caused to the environment and to natural resources, and shall demand their repair. Additionally, they shall cooperate with other nations in the protection of ecosystems for the length of the marine and land borders.

The acts adopted during the States of Exception that violate protected rights that unreasonably cause suspended rights are subject to actions of amparo.

The Senate is composed of elected members, one for each province and one for the National District, who shall exercise their role for four years.

In order to be a male or female senator one is required to be a male or female Dominican in full exercise of civil and political rights, to have reached twenty-five years of age, to be a native of the territory that elects him or to have resided in it for at least five consecutive years. Consequently:

1. The male and female senators elected for a territory shall reside in the same during the period for which they are elected.
2. Naturalized persons may only be elected to the Senate ten years after having acquired Dominican nationality, always having resided in the jurisdiction that elect them during the five years that precede their election.

The exclusive powers of the Senate are:

1. Head of state removal, Electoral court removal, Constitutional court removal, Removal of individual legislators, Supreme/ordinary court judge removal
   To be familiar with the accusations made by the Chamber of Deputies against the public officials designated in Article 83, section 1. The declaration of culpability leaves the person stripped of their office, and may not exercise any public office, whether or not by popular election, for a term of ten years. The person so stripped shall remain subject, if that is the case, to be accused and judged before the ordinary courts, in accordance with the law. This decision shall be adopted with the vote of two thirds of the membership.
2. To approve or disapprove the appointments of ambassadors and heads of permanent authorized missions abroad that are submitted by the President of the Republic.
3. To choose the members of the Chamber of Accounts from the shortlists presented by the Chamber of Deputies, with the vote of two thirds of the senators present.
4. Electoral commission
   To choose members of the Central Electoral board and their substitutes, with the vote of two thirds of those present
5. Ombudsman
   To choose the Defender of the People, his substitutes and his adjuncts, from the shortlists presented to them by the Chamber of Deputies, with the vote of two thirds of those present.
6. To authorize, at the request of the President of the Republic, in the absence of a convention that permits him, the presence of foreign troops in military exercises in the territory of the Republic, as well as to determine the time period and the conditions of their stay.
7. International organizations
   To approve or disapprove the sending of troops on missions of peace abroad, authorized by international bodies, fixing the conditions and duration of said mission.

The Chamber of Deputies shall be composed in the following manner:

1. One hundred and seventy-eight male or female deputies elected by territorial constituencies in representation of the National District and the provinces, distributed in proportion to the population density, with their being at least two representatives for each province in all cases.
2. Five male or female deputies elected at the national level by an accumulation of votes, preferably from parties, alliances, or coalitions that have not obtained seats and have achieved no less than one percent (1%) of the valid votes cast. The law shall determine their distribution.
3. Seven male or female deputies elected in representation of the Dominican community abroad. The law shall determine their form of election and distribution.

In order to be a male or female deputy one must meet the same requirements as to be a senator.

The exclusive powers of the Chamber of Deputies are:

1. Removal of individual legislators, Supreme/ordinary court judge removal, Constitutional court removal, Electoral court removal, Head of state removal
   To accuse before the Senate public officials elected by popular vote, those elected by the Senate and by the National Counsel of the Magistrature for the commission of serious wrongs in the exercise of the offices. The accusation may only be made with the favorable vote of two thirds of the membership. When they are about the President and the Vice President of the Republic, they shall require the favorable vote of three quarters of the membership. The accused person shall have their office suspended from the moment in which the Chamber declares that the accusation has been made.
2. To submit to the Senate the shortlists for the election of the members of the Chamber of Accounts with the favorable vote of two thirds of those present.
3. Ombudsman
   To submit to the Senate the shortlists for the Defender of the People, their substitutes, of which there cannot be more than two, and the adjuncts, of which there may not be more than five, with the favorable vote of two thirds of those present.

The unwillingness of the summoned people to appear or to render the required declarations, shall be sanctioned by the criminal courts of the Republic, with the penalty provided for by the legal provisions in force for cases of contempt of public authority, at the request of the appropriate chamber.

If the male or female official summoned does not appear without a justifiable reason or his or her declarations are considered unsatisfactory, the chambers, with the vote of two thirds of their present members, may emit a vote of censure against him or her and recommend his or her dismissal from office to the President of the Republic or to the appropriate hierarchical superior for breach of responsibility.

Male and female legislators who exercise the right to initiative in the formation of the laws, may sustain their motion in the other chamber. In the same manner, the others that have this right may make it in both chambers personally or through a representative.

The Executive Power is exercised in the name of the people by the male or female President of the Republic, in his or her condition as head of State and of government in accordance with that provided by this Constitution and the law.

In order to be President of the Republic, one is required:

1. To be Dominican by birth or origin
2. Minimum age of head of state
   To have reached thirty years of age
3. To be in full exercise of civil and political rights
4. Restrictions on the armed forces
   To not be in active military or police service for at least the three years prior to the presidential elections

The Executive Power is exercised by the male or female President of the Republic, who shall be elected every four years by direct vote. The male or female President of the Republic may opt for a second consecutive constitutional term and may never again run for the same office or the Vice Presidency of the Republic.

There shall be a male or female Vice President of the Republic, elected jointly with the President in the same form and for an equal period. In order to be Vice President of the Republic the same conditions are required as to be President.

The President and Vice President of the Republic elected in general elections shall give an oath of office the 16th of August following their election, the date on which the term of the exiting authorities ends. Consequently:

1. When the President of the Republic cannot swear the oath due to finding himself outside of the country, sickness, or for any other cause for force majeure, the Vice President of the Republic shall be sworn in, who shall exercise for the interim the office of the President of the Republic, and in his absence, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice. Once the reason that has impeded the President or the Vice President from assuming their offices has ended, they shall be sworn in and shall enter their offices immediately.
2. If the elected President of the Republic is absent in a definitive form without being sworn into office, and this absence is recognized to be so by the National Assembly, the Vice President elect of the Republic shall serve as his substitute and in his absence, it shall proceed in the earlier indicated manner.

The male or female President and the male or female Vice President elect of the Republic, before entering office, shall give before the National Assembly the following oath: “I swear before God and before the people, by the Country and by my honor, to fulfill and make fulfilled the Constitution and the laws of the Republic, to protect and defend its independence, to respect the rights and the liberties of the male and female citizens and to faithfully fulfill the duties of my office.

The male or female President of the Republic directs the internal and exterior policy, the civil and military administration, and is the supreme authority of the Armed Forced, the National Police, and the other bodies of security of the State.

1. In his condition as Chief of State it is his responsibility:
   1. To preside over the solemn acts of the Nation
   2. To Promulgate and make public the laws and resolutions of the National Congress and to watch for their faithful execution. To expedite decrees, rules, and instructions when it is necessary.
   3. Selection of active-duty commanders
      To appoint or dismiss the members of the military and police jurisdictions
   4. Treaty ratification, International law, Legal status of treaties
      To make and sign international treaties and conventions and to submit them for the approval of the National Congress, without which they will neither be valid nor carry obligations for the Republic.
   5. Provide, in accordance with the law, for that which concerns the Armed Forces as well as the National Police, to order them himself or through an appropriate ministry, always maintaining his supreme command. To decide the contingent of the same and to provide them for public service ends.
   6. Emergency provisions
      To take necessary measures to provide for and guarantee the legitimate defense of the Nation, in case of actual or imminent armed attack on the part of a foreign nation or external powers, with the duty of informing the National Congress of the adopted provisions and soliciting the declaration of a State of Defense if it proceeds
   7. Emergency provisions
      To declare, it the National Congress does not find itself meeting, states of exception in accordance with the provisions given in Articles 262 to 266 of this Constitution.
   8. To adopt necessary provisional measures of police and security in the case of the violation of the provisions of Article 62, number 6, of this Constitution that disrupt or threaten the public order, the security of the State, the regular functioning of public services or public use, or impede the development of economic activities and do not constitute facts given in Articles 262 to 266 of this Constitution.
   9. To provide, in accordance with the law, all that is related to the aerial, marine, river, land, military, and police in matters of national security, with the studies previously realized by the ministries and their administrative departments.
   10. International law, Power to pardon
       To grant pardons on the 27th of February, 16th of August, and 23rd of December of each year, in accordance with the law and international conventions.
   11. To arrest or expel, in accordance with the law, foreigners whose activities are or could be detrimental to the public order or the national security.
   12. Restrictions on entry or exit
       To prohibit, when it is good for the public interest, the entry of foreigners into the national territory.
2. In his condition as Chief of Government he has the ability:
   1. Cabinet removal, Cabinet selection
      To appoint ministers and vice ministers and other public officials that occupy offices of free appointment or whose appointment is not attributed to any other body of the State recognized by this Constitution or the law, as well as to accept their resignation and to remove them.
   2. To appoint the male and female heads of the autonomous and decentralized organs and bodies of State, as well as to accept their resignations and to remove them, in accordance with the law.
   3. To change the location of his official residence when he judges it necessary.
   4. To make contracts, submitting them for approval to the National Congress when they have provisions related to damage caused to national revenue, to the transfer of title of assets of the State, to the termination of loans or when they stipulate exemptions to taxes in general, in accordance with the Constitution. The maximum amount for said contracts and exemptions that may be endorsed by the President of the Republic without congressional approval shall be two hundred minimum salaries of the public sector.
   5. To safeguard the good collection and faithful investment of the national revenue
   6. Legislative oversight of the executive
      To deposit before the National Congress, at the beginning of the first ordinary legislature on the 27th of February of each year, the reports of the ministries and to render the accounts of his administration of the prior year.
   7. Budget bills
      To submit to the National Congress, no later than the first of October of every year, the Project of Law of the General Budget of the State for the following year.
3. As Chief of Sate and of Government, it is his responsibility:
   1. Foreign affairs representative, International organizations
      To appoint, with the approval of the Senate of the Republic the accredited ambassadors abroad and the chiefs of permanent missions before international bodies, as well as to appoint the other members of the diplomatic corps, in accordance with the Law of Foreign Service, to accept their resignations and to remove them.
   2. Foreign affairs representative
      To direct diplomatic negotiations and to receive foreign Chiefs of State and their representatives.
   3. International organizations
      To grant or deny authorization to Dominican citizens that they may exercise public duty or office for international governments or organizations in the Dominican territory and that they may accept and use awards and titles granted by foreign governments.
   4. To authorize or deny authorization to city councils to sell title to real estate and to approve or not the contracts that they make, when they are made in the guarantee of real estate or municipal revenues.
   5. The other powers provided for in the Constitution and the law.

The presidential succession shall be ruled by the following norms:

1. In case of the temporary absence of the President of the Republic, the Vice President of the Republic shall assume the Executive Power.
2. In case of the definitive absence of the President of the Republic, the Vice President shall assume the Presidency of the Republic for the time that remains before the end of the presidential term.
3. In the definitive absence of both, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice shall assume the Executive Power for the interim, who, within the fifteen days that follow the date of having assumed that office, shall convoke the National Assembly so that they may meet within the fifteen following days and elect the new President and Vice President of the Republic, in a session that may not be ended or be declared in recess until the election has taken place.
4. In the case that, for any circumstance, such a convocation cannot be made, the National Assembly shall meet in full right, immediately, to achieve the election in the previously indicated manner.
5. The election shall be made through the favorable vote of more than half of the present assembly members.
6. The substitutes for the President and Vice President of the Republic shall be chosen from the shortlists that the superior body of the political party that elected them presents to the National Assembly, in accordance with their statutes, in the period given in number 3 of this article. Once the period has run without the party having presented the shortlists, the National Assembly shall realize the election.

In case of the definitive absence of the Vice President of the Republic, before or after his swearing in, the President of the Republic, in a period of thirty days, shall present a shortlist to the National Assembly for his election. Once the period has passed without the President having presented a shortlist, the National Assembly shall realize the election.

The male or female President of the Republic may not travel abroad for more than fifteen days without the authorization of the National Congress.

The male or female President and Vice President of the Republic may only resign before the National Assembly.

Without prejudice to that provided for in Article 80, number 1 of this Constitution, the male or female President and the Vice President of the Republic, elect or in office, may not be deprived of their liberty.

The Council of Ministers is the organ of coordination of the general affairs of the government and has as its end to organize and accelerate the handling of the aspects of the Public Administration in benefit of the general interests of the Nation and in service of the citizenry. It shall be formed by the President of the Republic, who shall preside over it, the Vice President, and the ministers.

The law shall create autonomous and decentralized bodies in the State, provided with juridical character, with administrative, financial, and technical autonomy. These bodies shall be assigned to the sector of the administration that is compatible with their activities, under the watch of the male or female head minister of the sector. The law and the Executive Power shall regulate the policies of non-concentration of the services of the public administration.

The Statute of Public Office is a rule of public right based on the merit and professionalization for an efficient management and accomplishment of the essential functions of the State. This statute shall determine the form of entering, ascent, evaluation of work, permanence, and separation of the public servant from his role.

The law shall determine the statutory rule required for the professionalization of the different institutions of the Public Administration.

No official or employee of the State may take on, in a simultaneous manner, more than one paid office, except for teaching. The law shall establish the methods of compensation of male and female officials and employees of the State, in accordance with criteria of merit and characteristic of their giving service.

The dismissal of public servants that belong to the Administrative Career in violation of the rule of Public Office shall be considered an act contrary to the Constitution and the law.

All forms of corruption in the organs of the State are condemned. Consequently:

1. All persons who extract public funds or who, taking advantage of their positions within the organs and bodies of the State, its autonomous offices or institutions, obtains for himself or for third parties economic advantage, shall be penalized.
2. In equal manner, a person who gives advantages to his associations, family, allies, friends or relationships shall be penalized.
3. Earnings disclosure requirement
   In accordance with that provided by law, sworn declarations of assets of male and female public officials, who always have the responsibility of proving the origin of their assets, before and after having terminated their office or at the request of the appropriate authority.
4. To people who have been condemned for crimes of corruption the penalty of civic degradation shall be applied, and restitution for that they took in an illegal manner shall be required.
5. The law may provide for periods of statute of limitations of longer duration than that which is ordinary for cases of crimes of corruption and a restrictive regimen of procedural benefits.

Public services are meant to satisfy the necessities of collective interest. They shall be declared by law. Consequently:

1. The State guarantees access to public services of quality, directly or by delegation, through concession, authorization, association in participation, transfer of actionable property or other contractual modality, in accordance with this Constitution and the law.
2. Public services given by the State or by individuals, the legal or contractual modalities, must respond to the principles of universality, accessibility, efficiency, transparency, responsibility, continuity, quality, reasonability, and equity of price.
3. The regulation of public services is the exclusive role of the State. The law may establish that the regulation of those services and other economic activities is found under the charge of bodies created for those ends.

Juridical persons of public right and their officials or agents shall be responsible, jointly and mutually, in accordance with the law, for damages and prejudices occasioned on physical or juridical persons for an anti-juridical administrative action or omission.

The members of this council, with the exception of the Supreme Court of Justice, shall remain in these offices for five years, shall cease in the exercise of their jurisdictional functions while they are members of said council and may not opt for a new period on the council.

The law shall define the functioning and organization of this council.

There will be appellate courts and their equivalents that the law determines, as well as the number of judges that should compose it and its territorial responsibilities.

In order to be a judge of a Court of Appeals, one is required:

1. To be a male or female Dominican.
2. To find oneself in full exercise of the civil and political rights.
3. To be a bachelor or doctor of Law.
4. To belong to the judicial career and to have acted as a judge of First Instance during the time period determined by law.

The powers of the appellate courts are:

1. To come to learn the appeals and sentences, in accordance with the law.
2. To come to learn in the first instance of criminal cases against judges of first instance or their equivalents, district attorneys, heads of autonomous and decentralized organs and bodies of the State, provincial governors, mayors of the National District and of the municipalities.
3. To come to know the other matters that the laws determine.

There shall be court of first instance or their equivalents, with the number of judges and the territorial responsibilities that the law determines.

In order to be a judge of first instance, one is required:

1. To be a male or female Dominican.
2. To find oneself in full exercise of the civil and political rights.
3. To be a bachelor or doctor of Law.
4. To belong to the judicial career and to have worked as a Judge of Peace during the time period determined by law.

The law shall determine the number of courts of peace or their equivalents, their powers, territorial responsibilities and the form in which they shall be organized.

In order to be a judge of peace, one is required:

1. To be a male or female Dominican.
2. To find oneself in full exercise of the civil and political rights.
3. To be a bachelor or doctor of Law.

The Contentious Administrative Jurisdiction shall be integrated by superior administrative courts and contentious administrative courts of first instance. Their powers, integration, location, territorial responsibilities, and proceedings shall be determined by the law. The superior courts may divide themselves into chambers and their decisions are susceptible to appeal.

The following are powers of the superior administrative courts, without prejudice to the others provided by law:

1. To come to learn the recourses against the decisions in administrative, tax, financial, and municipal matters of any contentious administrative court of first instance, or that essentially has this character.
2. To come to learn the contentious recourses against the acts, conduct, and provisions of administrative authorities contrary to Law as a consequence of the relationships between the Administration of the State and individuals, if they are not known by the contentious administrative court of first instance.
3. To come to learn and to resolve in first instance or in appeal in accordance with law, the contentious administrative actions that are born of conflicts emerging between the Public Administration and its officials and civil employees.
4. The other powers conferred by law.

The Public Administration shall be permanently represented before the Contentious Administrative Jurisdiction by the General Administrative Attorney and, if it proceeds, by the lawyers that he appoints. The General Administrative Attorney shall be appointed by the Executive Power. The law shall regulate that representation of the other organs and bodies of the State.

The General Administrative Attorney must meet the same conditions required to be the Attorney General of the Appellate Court.

The law shall provide for the creation of specialized jurisdictions when they are required for reasons of public interest or of efficiency of service for the treatment of other matters.

In the exercise of its functions, the Public Ministry shall guarantee the fundamental rights that belong to male and female citizens, shall promote the alternative resolution of disputes, shall provide for the protection of victims and witnesses and shall defend the public interest guarded by the law.

The law shall regulate the functioning of the penitentiary system under the direction of the Public Ministry or another body constituted in this effect.

The President of the Republic shall appoint the Attorney General of the Republic and half of the adjunct attorneys. In order to be Attorney General of the Republic or adjunct, one must have the same requirements as to be judge of the Supreme Court of Justice. The law shall provide the form of appointment of the other members of the Public Ministry.

The Public Ministry is formed by the Attorney General of the Republic, who directs it, and by the other male and female representatives established by law.

The Public Ministry is organized in accordance with the law, which regulates its non-removability, disciplinary regime and the other precepts that rule its actions, its educational school and its organs of government, guaranteeing the permanence of its career members until seventy-five years.

The organ of internal government of the Public Ministry is the Superior Council of the Public Ministry, which shall be integrated in the following manner:

1. The Attorney General of the Republic, who shall preside over it.
2. An Adjunct Attorney of the Attorney General of the Republic, elected by his peers.
3. A General Attorney of the Appellate Court elected by his peers
4. A Fiscal Attorney or his equivalent elected by his peers
5. A Supervisor elected by his peers.

The functions of the Superior Council of the Public Ministry are the following:

1. To direct and administer the system of the career of the Public Ministry
2. The financial and budgetary administration of the Public Ministry
3. To exercise disciplinary control over representatives, officials, and employees of the Public Ministry, with the exception of the Attorney General of the Republic.
4. To formulate and apply the instruments of evaluation of the representatives of the Public Ministry and of the administrative personnel who form it.
5. To transfer representatives of the Public Ministry, provisionally or definitively, from one jurisdiction to another when it is necessary and useful to the service, with the conditions and guarantees given in the law, with the exception of the male and female adjunct attorneys and the Attorney General of the Republic
6. To create administrative roles when they are necessary so that the Public Ministry may fulfill the powers that this Constitution and the laws confer unto it.
7. The other functions that the law confers unto it.

The region is the basic unit for the articulation and formulation of the public policies in the national territory. The law shall define all that is related to their responsibilities, composition, organization and functioning and shall determine the number of these.

The province is the intermediary political demarcation in the territory. It is divided in municipalities, municipal districts, sections and regions. The law shall define all that related to its composition, organization and functioning and shall determine the number of them.

The Executive Power shall appoint in each province a civil governor, who shall be his representative in this demarcation. In order to be civil governor one must be a male or female Dominican, older than twenty-five years of age, and be in full exercise of the civil and political rights. His powers and duties shall be determined by the law.

The National District, the municipalities and municipal districts constitute the base of the local political administrative system. They are juridical persons of Public Right, responsible for their actions, enjoy their own patrimony, budgetary autonomy, with normative and administrative power and the power of the use of their land, fixed in express manner by the law and subject to the power of supervision of the State and to the social control of the citizenry, in the terms established by this Constitution and the laws.

The town councils may establish taxes in the area of their demarcation that in an express manner the law establishes, provided that the same never interfere with the national taxes, with the inter-municipal commerce or exportation or with the Constitution or the laws. It is the responsibility of the appropriate courts to come to know the disputes that arise on this topic.

The government of the National District and that of the municipalities shall each be in charge of the town council, constituted by two organs complementary to each other, the Council of Aldermen and the Mayor’s Office. The Council of Aldermen is an exclusively normative, regulatory, and supervisory organ integrated by male and female aldermen. They shall have substitutes. The Mayor’s Office is the executive organ headed by a male or female mayor, whose substitute shall be called the male or female vice mayor.

The male or female mayors of the National District, of the municipalities, as well as the male and female directors of the municipal districts are the legal representatives of the town councils and the municipal boards. Their powers and abilities shall be determined by law.

The Organic Law of Local Administration shall establish the spheres, requirements and conditions for the exercise of the referendum, plebiscite, and normative municipal initiative with the purpose of strengthening the development of democracy and local administration.

Members of the Armed Forces and of the National Police, nor those who have lost the rights of citizenship or those who find themselves suspended in those rights do not have the right of suffrage.

The Central Electoral Board is an autonomous organ with juridical personality and technical, administrative, budgetary and financial independence, whose principal purpose shall be to organize and direct the electoral assemblies for the celebration of elections and or mechanisms of popular participation established by the present Constitution and the laws. It shall have regulatory ability in the matters that are its responsibility.

In the National District and in each municipality there shall be an Electoral Board with administrative and contentious functions. In administrative matters they shall be subordinated to the Central Electoral Board. In contentious matters their decisions are appealable before the Superior Electoral Court, in accordance with the law.

The Superior Electoral Court is the appropriate organ to judge and decide with definitive character on the contentious electoral matters and to ordain over the disagreements that arise internally from the parties, groups, and political movements or between them. It shall regulate, in accordance with the law, the proceedings of its responsibility and all that is related to its administrative and financial organization and functioning.

The Court shall be integrated by no less than three and no more than four electoral judges and their substitutes, appointed for a period of four years by the National Council of the Magistrature, who shall indicate which of them shall occupy the presidency.

The economic regime is oriented towards the search for human development. It is based on economic growth, redistribution of wealth, social justice, equity, social and territorial cohesion and environmental sustainability in a framework of free competition, equality of opportunities, social responsibility, participation and solidarity.

Private initiative is free. The State shall ensure, together with the private sector, an equilibrated and sustained growth of the economy, with stability of prices, tending toward full employment and the increase of social well-being, through rational utilization of the available resources, the permanent education of human resources and scientific and technological development.

The State foments private economic initiative, creating policies necessary to promote the development of the country. Under the principle of subsidiarity of the State, by its own account or in association with the private and supportive sector, may exercise business activity with the end of ensuring access of the population to basic assets and services and promoting the national economy.

All contracts of the State and persons of Public Right with physical or juridical foreign persons housed in the country, should count on submission to the laws and jurisdictional organs of the Republic. Nevertheless, the State and the other persons of Public Right may submit the disputes derived from contractual relations to jurisdictions constituted in virtue of international treaties in effect. They may also submit them to national and international arbitrage in accordance with the law.

Business activity, public or private, receives the same legal treatment. Equality of conditions of national and foreign investment is guaranteed, with the limitations established in this Constitution and the laws. The law shall concede special treatment to investments that are located in zones with a lower degree of development or in activities of national interest, in particular located in border provinces.

The State recognizes the contribution of popular economic initiatives to the development of the country, foments the conditions of integration of the informal sector in the national economy, incentivizes and protects micro, small, and medium development of businesses, cooperatives, family businesses, and other forms of community association for work, production, savings, and consumption, that generate conditions that permit access to convenient financing, technical assistance, and training.

The regulation of the monetary and financial system of the Nation is the responsibility of the Monetary Board as the superior organ of the Central Bank.

The Monetary Board is integrated by no more than nine members including the Governor of the Central Bank, who presides over it, and ex officio members whose number shall not be more than three.

The Central Bank of the Republic is an entity of Public Right with juridical personality, its own patrimony, and functional, budgetary, and administrative autonomy.

The Monetary Board, represented by the Governor of the Central Bank, shall be in charge of the direction and adequate application of the monetary, exchange, and financial policies of the Nation and the coordination of the regulatory entities of the system and of the financial market.

The Monetary Board, represented by the Governor of the Central Bank, will have at its responsibility the direction and adequate application of the monetary, exchange and financial policies of the Nation and the coordination of the regulatory entities of the financial system and of the financial market.

The Central Bank, whose capital is property of the State, is the sole issuer of bills and coins of national circulation and has as its objective to watch for the stability of prices.

The national monetary unit is the Dominican Peso.

Only bills issues and coins minted by the Central Bank shall have legal circulation and tender, under the unlimited guarantee of the State and in the proportions and conditions indicated by law.

The issuance of paper, coins, or other monetary signs not authorized by this Constitution is prohibited.

By exception of that provided in Article 122 of this Constitution, the modification of the legal regime of coin or of the bank shall require the support of two thirds of the totality of the members of one and the other legislative chamber, provided that it has been initiated by the Executive Power, at the proposal of the Monetary Board or with the favorable vote of the same, in which case it shall be ruled by the related provisions of the organic laws.

The elaboration of the project of Law of General Budget of the State, which considers the probable income, proposed expenses, and the required financing, realized in a framework of fiscal sustainability, ensuring that public indebtedness is compatible with the capacity of payment of the State, is the responsibility of the Executive Power.

Congress may include new line items and modify those that figure into the project of Law of General Budget of the State or in the project of law that distribute funds submitted by the Executive Power, with the vote of two thirds of those present of each legislative chamber.

The National Congress may modify the project of Law of General Budget of the State when it is submitted later than the date referred to by Article 128, number 2, part g, with the absolute majority of the membership of each chamber.

No distribution of public funds shall be valid if it was not authorized by the law and ordered by an appropriate official.

Laws that order, authorize a payment, or engender a pecuniary obligation to the charge of the State shall not have effect nor validity unless this same law identifies or establishes the resources necessary for its execution.

It is the responsibility of the State to realize an equitable assignment of the public spending in the territory. Its planning, programming, execution and evaluation shall respond to the principles of subsidiarity and transparency, as well as the criteria of efficiency, priority, and economy.

When the Congress has not approved the project of Law of General Budget of the State later than the 31st of December, the Law of General Budget of the State of the previous year shall rule, with the adjustments given in the Organic Law of Budget, until its approval is produced.

Annually, in the month of April, the general account of the incomes and expenditures of the Republic made in the year shall be published.

The Executive Power, after consulting the Economic and Social Council and the political parties, shall elaborate and submit to the National Congress a strategy of development that shall define the vision of the Nation for the long term. The process of planning and public investment shall be rules by the corresponding law.

The Multi-Year National Plan of the Public Sector and its corresponding updates shall be sent to the National Congress by the Executive Power, during the second legislature of the year in which the period of government begins, ager consulting the Council of Ministers for knowledge of the programs and projected that will be executed during its effectiveness. The results and impacts of its execution shall be realized in a framework of fiscal sustainability.

The tax regime is based in the principles of legality, justice, equality and equity so that each male and female citizen may fulfill the maintenance of the public burdens.

Individuals may only acquire, through concessions that the law or authorizes or contracts that the National Congress approves, the right to benefit, for all the time that the concession or contract stipulates and fulfilling the obligations that one and another impose on them, of exemptions, exonerations, reductions or limitations of taxes, contributions, or fiscal or municipal rights that occur in certain works or businesses towards which it has been agreed to attract investment of new capitals for the growth of the national economy or for any other goal of social interest. The transference of rights authorized through contracts shall be subject to ratification on the part of the National Congress.

The Controller General of the Republic is the organ of the Executive Power governing the internal control, exercise of internal supervision and the evaluation of the due collection, management, use and investment of the public resources and authorizes the orders of payment, after proof of fulfillment of the legal and administrative processes of the institutions under its sphere, in accordance with the law.

The Chamber of Accounts is the superior external organ of fiscal control of the public resources, of the administrative processes and of the patrimony of the State. It has juridical personality, technical character and enjoys administrative, operative, and budgetary autonomy. It shall be composed of five members, elected by the Senate of the Republic from the shortlists presented to it by the Chamber of Deputies, for a period of four years and shall remain in their functions until their substitutes are appointed.

In order to be a member of the Chamber of Accounts one must be a male or female Dominican in full exercise of the civil and political rights, be of recognized ethical and moral solvency, have reached the age of thirty years, have a university degree and be prepared for the professional exercise, preferably in the areas of accounting, finance, economics, law or something related, and the other conditions that the law determines.

Its powers shall be, other than those conferred to it by law:

1. To examine the general and individual accounts of the Republic.
2. To present to the National Congress reports about the supervision of the patrimony of the State.
3. To audit and analyze the execution of the General Budget of the State at the National Congress approves each year, taking as base the state of collection and investment of the taxes presented by the Executive Power, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws, and to submit the corresponding report of this on the 30th of April at the latest of the following year, for its knowledge and decision.
4. To issue norms with obligatory character for the inter-institutional coordination of the organs and bodies responsible for the control and auditing of the public resources.
5. To make special investigations at the request of one or both legislative chambers.

The custody, supervision and control of all arms, munitions and other military supplies, material and equipment of war that enter the country or are produced by the national industry is the responsibility of the Armed Forces, with the restrictions established in the law.

The Central Electoral Board shall submit the reforms for referendum within the sixty days following its formal reception.

The approval of the reforms to the Constitution by way of referendum requires more than half of the votes of those who may vote and that the number of those exceeds thirty percent of the total of male and female citizens that form the Electoral Register, adding the voters that express themselves with “YES” or with “NO.”

If the result of the referendum is affirmative, the reform shall be proclaimed and published in full with the reformed texts by the National Revisory Assembly.

The municipal authorities elected on the third Sunday of February of each four years shall take possession on the 24th of April of the same year.

When an elected official stops in the exercise of the office due to death, resignation, disqualification or another reason, he who substitutes him shall remain in the exercise of the office until the term is complete.