Leonel: "The Court lost its authority and went too far"

SANTO DOMINGO. Former President Leonel Fernandez dismissed yesterday before the Organization of American States (OAS) that the Dominican Republic is violating human rights, by not applying the sentence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IAC HR), which ordered the automatic concession of nationality to be established by "jus soli" for persons that are born in its territory.

Fernandez said that the IAC HR went too far with this decision, which he said leads to a situation of de - legitimization and a crisis of confidence before the States that "voluntarily and in good faith decided to be part of the Inter American System."

The former President warned that the imposition of terms by the IAC HR produces a failure to comply with its decisions, and eventually the resignation by part of governments from this court.

Fernandez stressed that, according to a report from the year 2010 from the Center of Migration Studies, in the United States, of the 194 member states of the United Nations, only 30 admit the system of Jus Soli without any conditions, so that 164, among them Haiti and Costa Rica, do not admit it.

The former Chief Executive explained that the tendency of the countries has been to restrict the granting of nationality and an automatic manner, due to the volume of immigration, which has made unconditional Jus Soli unsustainable for some states to continue.

They do not recognize the Court

Fernandez indicated as a challenge to the Inter-American system the participation of those states in its institutional mechanisms, since of the 35 States that make up the OAS, 13 have not recognized the competence of the IAC HR.

He alerted the OAS on the loss of authority by the IAC HR as he indicated that the rate of compliance of its sentences only reaches 20% of the cases.

He argued that this reflects an erosion of the authority of the court and a perception of "decline and irrelevance."

For Fernandez what the Court ordered would be possible in the United States, but not in the Dominican Republic, where automatic Jus Soli does not exist.

"The denial of the right that the Dominican Republic has of no adopting this system constitutes a clear violation of our country sovereignty," he emphasized.

The OAS should be re-launched

Fernandez took advantage of the scenario of the Chair of the Americas of the OAS in order to push this agency to "rethink your objectives, redesign your institutions and re - launch yourselves" for new areas that guarantee the peoples of the region peace, security, prosperity and welfare.

He said that the OAS could renew itself "the same as in the end of the Cold War, and go forward in the fulfillment of an agenda that fundamentally concentrates itself on the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights, at the present time, in this the 2nd decade of the 21st century."

Attending the conference by Fernandez where the Secretary-General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, and the Secretary of Foreign Relations of the hemispherical organization, Alphonso Quinones.

Also attending the speech were Pedro Verges, and Anibal de Castro, the permanent representative of the Dominican Republic before the OAS and the ambassador of the country before the government of the United States, respectively.

He denied discrimination in the DR

The former Dominican President, Leonel Fernandez, assured his audience that the Dominican Republic has been careful to avoid statelessness, because it was his understanding that the country has given compliance to its obligations under the different agreements existing in relation to human rights.

"We also can say that in our country there is not a situation of discrimination against a specific national group," he said. He stressed that the country has put into action the National Plan of Normalization of Foreigners in an Irregular Immigration Situation and Law 169 - 14 and "these dispositions go beyond even the international obligations contracted by the Dominican Republic in order to avoid statelessness."

Diario Libre