The Dominican news outlet Hoy has reported a harrowing reason why 389 Dominican prisoners remain in jail despite having completed their sentences: they must pay a “freedom fee.” This new outrage from the Public Ministry is more evidence of disregard for Dominican law, which clearly states that continued imprisonment under such conditions is reserved only for “extreme” circumstances.
Dominican prisoners must “simply” pay fines of between RD$15,000 to RD$2 million Dominican pesos ($252 USD to $33,613 USD) to be granted full freedom, despite having completed their prison sentences. Director General of Prisons Colonel Roberto Hernández Basilio has defended this mechanism by explaining that these exorbitant “freedom fees” can be easily “commuted.”
If inmates cannot pay the fee, the sentencing judge has four options: 1) replace the fine with community service; 2) request a period of time to pay it; 3) deliver sufficient assets to cover it; and 4) pay it in installments.
According to Dominican law, “conversion of the fine into deprivation of liberty” is only done in an “extreme” circumstance. But despite all of the options available, the Public Ministry is keeping nearly 400 people in jail past their sentences today, clearly going beyond the limits of the law. This is another chapter in the ongoing story of why the Public Ministry has earned the condemnation of the world’s human rights monitoring organizations.
Mounting Evidence
This news comes on the heels of a recent report by Rodolfo Valentín Santos, Director of the Dominican Republic’s National Public Defense Office (ONDP), regarding a prisoner that was illegally held for ten years after his release was ordered by a judge. The Public Ministry has uses an illegal “98% rule,” requesting preventive detention orders in nearly all uncharged cases under investigation during the first four months of 2024.
DR Officials Routinely Whitewash Human Rights Violations
When Dominican civil society presented scathing evidence of pervasive human rights abuses during an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) hearing last February, Dominican officials quickly dismissed the claims. Colonel Roberto Hernández Basilio stated that these concerns were merely “extreme exaggerations.”
Last November, Dominican prosecutors responded to a seething condemnation of the Public Ministry by the UN’s Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), stating that it was a “serious interference that threatens the independence of the judiciary of the Dominican Republic” and labeling the condemnation as “blackmail.”
Continued U.S. Funding of a Broken Dominican Justice System
Despite ongoing evidence of human rights violations within the Dominican justice system, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to provide the Dominican government millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Under the DR allocations for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), U.S. funds are to be used under the guise of “increasing transparency and effectiveness of criminal justice systems” and “improve the quality of criminal prosecution, increase access to justice, and strengthen public demand for effective justice” in the Dominican Republic.
In May, the Dominican Justice Initiative (DJI) expressed concerns regarding the absence of stipulations tied to U.S. taxpayer funding, which would mandate the cessation of human rights violations within the DR justice system. There is also no requirement for identifying and penalizing those responsible for human rights abuses in order to receive U.S. financing for the Dominican justice system. Without a firm insistence on upholding human rights standards in accordance with Dominican and international law, U.S. taxpayers’ funds will be inadvertently supporting the worsening of human rights abuses in the Dominican Republic and giving the perpetrators a financial safe haven from accountability.