Magistrate Francisco Ortega Polanco, judge of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, indicated this Wednesday that in the justice system of the Dominican Republic the judge is an impartial third party who judges "what is brought to him".
He pointed out that in all scenarios, trials must be based on justice and truth, even in the so-called parallel trials, in which judges are sometimes "imputed" and tried without any guarantee of their personal and professional dignity.
«Lo que uno pretende es que los juicios, en cualquier dimensión, se basen en la justicia. El juez no puede cargar con las falencias ajenas, es un tercero imparcial a quien no le corresponde salir a buscar la verdad, tiene que juzgar lo que le llevan”, sostuvo.
These were the words of the also the President of the Communication and Institutional Image Commission of the Judiciary, when he gave the opening remarks at the second workshop for communicators. workshop for communicators "The criminal process, effective judicial protection and the media," in which journalists and opinion leaders took part, with the objective of educating the functioning of justice and the different procedural stages. the different procedural stages.
Magistrate Ortega Polanco said that journalists and judges constitute a means of communication between two apparently distant sectors, but at the same time very closely linked, since in some way judges also communicate through their rulings and motivations.
He also said that, like judges, journalists judge and it is at this point where the citizen seeks to determine which of the actors to follow.
The facilitators of the workshop were magistrates Rafael Baez, judge of the First Chamber of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals of the National District; Esmirna Gisselle Mendez Alvarez, presiding judge of the First Collegiate Court of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the National District; and Kenya Scarlet Romero, coordinating judge of the Courts of Instruction of the aforementioned jurisdiction.
The training, which was held in coordination with the National School of the Judiciary (ENJ) and the Dominican College of Journalists (CDP), is part of the training and updating program for the press that the Dominican Judiciary has been carrying out since 2019.
During the course of the training, Judge Kenya Romero addressed the following topics addressed the following topics: potentialities of judicial communication, the perception of the collective, phases of the accusatory criminal process, effective judicial protection, the stages in a criminal process, the content of the accusation and the impact of the conclusive acts.
While Judge Esmirna Gisselle Méndez explained the stages in the criminal trial, the roles of the judge, the defense and the Public Prosecutor's Office, principles, fundamental rights and guarantees, time limits and their consequences, deprivation of liberty and the termination of pre-trial detention; the principle of publicity, participation of the media and its limitations, as well as appeals.
For his part, Magistrate Rafael Baez addressed issues related to the execution of the sentence, the rights of the person deprived of liberty, the progressive system of the penitentiary and correctional regime, the permission to leave and under what circumstances they apply, among other important topics.
The workshop was attended by reporters, opinion leaders, commentators, press correspondents and journalists assigned to judicial sources.
