Geraldo Luis was ordered released from prison in 2014. Prosecutors, judges and prison officials left him to rot there for ten more years.
Rodolfo Valentín Santos, Director of the Dominican Republic’s National Public Defense Office (ONDP), reported yesterday that despite receiving a release order in 2014, Geraldo Luis was abandoned by the entire DR justice system and remained illegally imprisoned at Seibo Prison for ten more years.
“This is not an isolated case,” Valentín told Noticias SIN. “There are many other people in our jails that are suffering similar circumstances.”
Despite meeting the legal requirements for release, Luis was left in jail by prosecutors of the Public Ministry, the director of the penitentiary center, and the judge who ordered his sentencing. This prolonged his “unjustified” imprisonment at the overcrowded Seibo Prison.
As Valentín noted, Geraldo Luis is another face among the overwhelming majority of those being detained in the DR by the Public Ministry in violation of Dominican law and international human rights standards. Currently, 80% of prisoners in the Dominican Republic are held under preventive detention orders, placing the country among the top in the world for such practices, alongside the Central African Republic and Gabon.
DJI recently noted that major Dominican newspaper Listín Diario reported that in the first four months of 2024, preventive detention orders constituted 98% of all proposed coercive measures. Dominican criminal procedural law clearly states that preventive detention should only be applied in limited and extreme circumstances. However, prosecutors have resorted to preventive detention for convenience, disregarding legal protocols, and applying an illegal “98% rule” to seek such detention in nearly all cases where charges are not filed.
International Condemnation
The Public Ministry is facing increasing pressure and condemnation from a series of scathing international human rights reports that describe a Dominican justice system rife with human rights violations with no signs of improving. The abuse of Geraldo Luis’ human rights by the Public Ministry not only violates the laws and constitution of the DR, but are a violation of the American Convention on Human Rights which is enforced by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS). It is also a possible case of arbitrary detention prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Human Rights (ICCHR), which is enforced by tribunals like the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) which already condemned the Public Ministry last November.
Dominican Civil Society Outcry for Human Rights
Valentín said yesterday that the DR has failed to establish “restorative, humane, transformative justice.” This has coincided with a growing outcry from Dominican civil society over the pervasive human rights abuses and disregard for rule of law from the Public Ministry. Last February, Dominican National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH-DR) confronted Dominican government officials with a plethora of evidence of ongoing human rights abuses. This was shortly followed by the Institutionality and Justice Foundation (Finjus) calling for a national meeting to “rescue and humanize” the justice system.
The examples of worsening human rights abuses in the DR justice system are appearing almost daily in the Dominican media. International scrutiny is only going to intensify as more evidence and facts arise and cases against the DR are taken to international tribunals like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and WGAD. With all the indisputable evidence, it is important to ask renown human rights advocates now working for the Dominican government like Jose Miguel Vivanco why these human rights abuses in the country’s justice system are not being addressed.