Honor and Dignity

The penal section of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) has reclaimed an honor and a dignity once thought lost upon bravely rejecting the protest formulated by the United States before the Dominican government. The court has refused the request of extradition of a national demanded by U.S. justice.

The United States has supposed that, like a back of the hand smack from a judge or sheriff, Dominican justice will bow down and place their own necks on the executioner’s block, proceeding in accordance with US judgment and not in conformity with their obligation of applying the law correctly.

Before the refusal of the court judges to grant extradition of Juan Alberto Astwood Burgos to be judged in a Bronx courtroom under the charge of murder, the U.S. Embassy sent a diplomatic note of protest for what it denounced as “Improper application of the penal code.”

Oddly, the U.S. Embassy expresses “Particular worry and fear that the sentence will be utilized in an inappropriate manner as a precedent in the ventilation of various cases of request of extradition before the Supreme Court.”

The acting judges have responded with great valor and dignity to this diplomatic note, so markedly offensive to the dignity and sovereignty of the code of laws of judicial power, upon refusing the aforementioned request, which violates Article V of the extradition treaty written by both nations on June 19th, 1909.

The article invoked by the U.S. Embassy indicates that the limitations that determine the extradition of fugitives should be utilized in accordance with the laws of the place in which the crime was committed, however it ignores Article VIII of that same text that says that neither of the parties is obligated to extradite its own citizens or subjects.

Prevailing what is mentioned in the text, U.S. judges have never extradited a citizen of that country in almost 100 years of the existence of said treaty, as was well noted by the magistrates of the SCJ. Why should the US be able to demand outright, reciprocity and submission from Dominican justice?

The honorable judges of the Penal Section of the Supreme Court have demonstrated, with such valiant judicial decision and refusal of this crude manner of interfering in a national judicial order, that they will in no way shape or form subdue themselves to any imperial jurisdiction.

With the sentence and historic letter of refusal to this U.S. diplomatic note, the judges Hugo Alvarez Valencia, Julio Ibarra Rios, Edgar Hernandez Mejia, Dulce Maria de Goris and Victor Jose Castellanos, have reclaimed the honor and dignity of justice and rendered a service of inestimable importance to the whole nation.