SANTO DOMINGO.- The president of the Alianza País Party (ALPAÍS), Guillermo Moreno, stated that former president Leonel Fernández intends to take credit for the achievements made regarding the independence of the Public Ministry of the Dominican Republic.
“You have to be alive to hear unusual things. Today Leonel Fernández presents himself as the champion of freedom in the Public Ministry. “He may intend to confuse the new generations, but not those who know him a ruler,” Moreno said in written statements sent to ALMOMENTO.NET.
Moreno, who was prosecutor of the National District during 1996-1997, during the first government of Leonel Fernández, explained that during this time many investigations were initiated from this moment to the “scandalous” corruption of the previous years.
MECHANISMS TO CONTROL PROCESSES
He added that the ability of the Office of the Prosecutor to empower and carry out criminal investigation and prosecution processes in the acts of distribution of public resources was assessed by the Executive Branch as a risk and used the mechanisms to control it.
“The body created to control the fight against corruption, contrary to what one might think, is actually the Department of Prevention and Prosecution of Corruption (DEPRECO), which is attached to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic,” he said. .
He alleged that “the creation of DEPRECO by Leonel Fernández was not to intensify the fight against corruption, but to focus it on that department and from there to have political control over complaints, since its director was appointed by the Executive Branch through command.””.
He assured that “with DEPRECO, the power to investigate corruption complaints was taken from the Attorney General’s Office and a direct line was created, from the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic at that time, with the President of the Republic , to decide what complaints to investigate, what to file, what to dismiss, to develop into what it is today, the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against Administrative Corruption (PEPCA).”
“Evidence of the Executive Branch’s control of corruption complaints is shown by the almost zero results that have been in the two decades of PLD, in cases reported to DEPRECO and PEPCA,” he said.
HUNDREDS OF STRANDED FILES
Moreno pointed out that “there are hundreds of files stranded in PEPCA that have been waiting for years for a nod from the Executive Branch to decide what to do and, for the most part, they have suffered the fate of being forgotten, archive a prescription. .”
“In the same way,” he declared, “another blow of Leonel Fernández is against the independence of the justice system by including, in the 2010 Constitution, the Attorney General of the Republic as a member of the National Magistracy Council, which is the only . not an elected member, but appointed by the Executive, and therefore hierarchically below it”.
According to the President of ALPAIS, the objective sought by former President Fernández, in this case, is “through his subordinate, the Attorney General, to have a comfortable majority and more effective control over the appointment of the heads of the SCJ courts.”
«Leonel Fernández has reached the height of disrespect for institutions, by appointing his government as Attorney General, who is the administrator of his private law office, and as president of the Supreme Court, a fellow lawyer from in his office. “Whoever did all this as a ruler is the same person who now wants to present himself as the champion of freedom in the Public Ministry,” he concluded.
