AN UNJUST AND ABSURD DECISION
For several
weeks now various different civil organizations and some sectors of the Catholic
Church in the Dominican Republic have raised their voices in defense of the
fundamental rights of all those wronged by decision 168-13 of the Dominican
Constitutional Tribunal. The
international community has also begun to denounce the flagrant injustice of
this decision, which threatens to leave close to 200,000 persons without a
national identity. Of course, each
country is sovereign with regard to establishing its immigration laws and
deciding to whom it grants nationality or not; but what cannot be agreed with
is that by means of this decision the Constitutional Tribunal take away the nationality of Dominican citizens while
also violating the Dominican constitution in place since 2010.
This
conflict began in 2012 by the appeal for a constitutional review presented by
Ms. Juliana Dequis Pierre, a woman of Haitian parents but who was born and has
lived in the Dominican Republic all of her life. She made the appeal because
the Central Electoral Board (Junta
Central Electoral) refused to give her an original birth certificate to
process her identification of citizenship. She was refused because she had
Haitian surnames. As a result of this
process the Constitutional Tribunal ruled on September 23, 2013, in favor of
the Central Electoral Board and Ms. Juliana was denied the right to a birth
certificate, and with it, her nationality.
In the same decision the Court opened the doors to de-nationalize more
than four generations of Dominicans that are in the same legal situation as Ms.
Juliana Dequis Pierre. In it, it seems that the only crime that they have committed
is being from Haitian ancestry.
In summary:
this sentence snatches away their nationality from all those persons who during
eight decades (since 1929) were registered as Dominicans but whose parents were
“irregular migrants.” It directly and
above all affects thousands of persons of Haitian ancestry that until now were
under the protection of the Constitution and of the laws in place at the moment
of their birth and ratified in article 18.2 of the current Constitution of
2010. It’s calculated that close to
200,000 Dominicans of Haitian origin will be affected by this law. In the case that is be applied, they will
lose their nationality and will thus become country-less, most of them
retroactively for the supposed crime of their parents or grandparents who
arrived and came to the country in an “irregular” way.
Furthermore,
this controversial sentence has chosen to ignore something obvious: that the Haitian
immigration in the Dominican Republic is, as in the case of all the migratory phenomena,
a complex process caused by economic reasons in which both parties (the country
that sends and the country that receives) obtain benefits. The immigrants look to
escape poverty, and those that received them obtain a low cost labor force for
its national economy. To penalize the
children and grandchildren of irregular Haitian immigrants, denying them the
nationality after their parents and grandparents were brought through bilateral
contracts between the two governments, and they established themselves and
worked in the Dominican Republic under extremely difficult conditions is, in a
few words, an exercise in effrontery and dishonesty.
On the other
hand, the decision debilitates the country’s state of law, and with it,
increases the vulnerability of the poor, by violating the principles of favorability
and of no retroactivity of the law, as established in the Dominican
Constitution of 2010 in articles 74.4 and 110, respectively. Those affected by the decision are men, women
and children that consider the Dominican Republic to be their only country, as
they do not know any other country or culture or language – they are 100%
Dominican and yet, they are now being denied their nationality.
The decision
is not only detrimental to thousands of Dominicans but it also feeds the
anti-Haitianism in the rest of the population that has deep and complex
historical and social roots. It has
always been inherent, but has now been made explicit, creating therefore more social
unease and conflict. Sectors that call
themselves “nationalists” have taken the streets to back the Constitutional Tribunal’s
decision and to deny the injustice that it presumes. If they were truly
nationalists they would defend the right to the nationality of all those
Dominicans affected by the decision.
Once more we see that in the background of the question is the
resentment towards the Haitian people and their descendents in the Dominican Republic.
At this time
the country is divided between those that applaud the decision, and those that deny
its validity. The polls show that more
or less half of the Dominicans support the decision and the other half reject
it. There are also those who agree with
the decision but not with its retroactive character, looking back to 1929. This division, apart from generating social
ordeal, also damages the relationship between the two countries and negatively
affects the bi-national economy. Those
affected by the 168-13 decision will lack the legal documentation to study, to
work, to register their children or to have access to any basic public service. It’s a critical situation to which a
democratic state in the 21st century should know how to find
solutions that respect the human rights of all those that live and work in its
territory. The way ahead for those
affected by the decision is to strive so that their fundamental rights are respected,
making their cry of anguish heard by the international community, hoping that
the world is in solidarity with them.
And for those of us who work with them, the way ahead is to accompany
them in their struggle out of respect for their fundamental rights and to help
them to be heard.
Juan Manuel Camacho
