The Senate should consider the observations to the Penal Code

SANTO DOMINGO. The approval of the observations made by the Executive Power to the legislative proposal which modifies several articles of the Penal Code relating to abortion should be considered in the Senate of the Republic in order to be converted into law.

The affirmation is by the specialist in constitutional law, Eduardo Jorge Prats, who suggests that, just as was done with the Law of the National Council of Magistrates, observed by the President and approved by both legislative chambers, and since it is the well-established parliamentary practice, it should go to the Upper Chamber for approval.

Likewise, he says that the President was not obliged to send texts, and the deputies could perfectly, just like the old parliamentary practice, introduce an alternate manner and leave some aspects for a special law.

"In principle, and under reservations on what is established in the Regulation of the Chamber of Deputies, submitting an alternative text to a vote implicitly implies to vote on some presidential observations which give the opportunity to the Congress to agree on a text regarding these observations," he said.

The jurist made it clear that the Penal Code, even as originally approved by the two thirds majority of the legislators, was not processed as an organic law, but rather as an ordinary law, and therefore it is not possible to change the procedure to half of the legislative process.

"A well established parliamentary practice permits approval of presidential observations to laws by a simple majority of those legislators present," he pointed out.

The Chamber of Deputies approved last Tuesday the observations made by the Executive Power to the Penal Code, and introduced an alternative text on the articles 107, 108, 109 and 110, related to the interruption of pregnancy. The decision was adopted in a single reading.

The CODUE greets

The Dominican Council of Evangelical Unity greeted yesterday the decision by the Chamber of Deputies not to accept in the text approved for the Penal Code the so-called "therapeutic abortion" in an open and generic form in which it was proposed and was urged by certain sectors. During a press conference, 19 pastors from Christian organizations said that "the approved text does not authorize, as some were trying to obtain, the direct instruction of the fetus in the cases of risks to the life of the mother, but rather it puts a clear obligation on the doctors to work for the preservation of both lives."

Niza Campos