A debate over convening the Dominican Republic's National Council of the Magistracy, the body that appoints and can remove Supreme Court judges, has prompted a newspaper columnist to republish a year-old analysis warning that the country's seven-year judicial evaluation system lets the ruling political party reshape the nation's highest courts.
The column, first published on October 29, 2025, was reissued this week with only slight changes because the columnist said the same debate that inspired it last year, over calling the Council into session, was happening again now, tied to a decision on the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice.
The columnist said the presidency decision itself matters less than understanding an institutional design that, in practice, allows one political party to shape the composition of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the Superior Electoral Tribunal without regard for the views of other political forces represented on the Council. The National Council of the Magistracy is the body responsible for appointing judges to all three of those courts; the Constitutional Court rules on the constitutionality of laws, while the Superior Electoral Tribunal settles election disputes.
Roots in the 2010 constitutional reform
The design traces back to the constitutional reform of 2010, according to the columnist, which made four key changes that placed control of the country's highest judicial bodies in the hands of the sitting government.
First, the reform added the Attorney General, the country's chief prosecutor, to the National Council of the Magistracy, upsetting what the columnist called an already fragile balance of political forces on the body. Second, that addition expanded the Council's membership from seven to eight members. Third, it gave the president of the Republic, who chairs the Council ex officio, a casting vote to break any tie. Fourth, it gave the Council the power to evaluate Supreme Court judges every seven years.
A council tilted toward the ruling party
The Council's other members include the presidents of the two legislative chambers, who, except for the Council's first convocation in 1997, have belonged to the governing party or its allies, the columnist wrote. Until a 2024 reform, the Attorney General was also freely appointed and removed by the president.
That meant four of the Council's eight members typically came from the same political party or coalition even before any vote was cast, the columnist said, calling this an inbuilt head start that the president's casting vote then turns into full control, since it lets the president's party decide without needing to weigh other parties' views.
Why judges up for review side with the president
The power to evaluate Supreme Court judges every seven years was not part of the original reform proposal put to the constitutional Assembly in 2010, the columnist noted, but was added during second-reading debates. Because evaluation can end in a judge's removal, sitting Supreme Court judges who have served on the Council have, with few exceptions, backed whatever the president's party proposed, hoping to be reconfirmed in their own posts, according to the columnist.
Questioning the need for periodic review
The columnist questioned why Supreme Court judges should face evaluation every seven years at all, arguing that their original selection is itself already a review of their qualifications and record, often built over decades. In the columnist's view, judges' tenure should depend only on reaching retirement age, committing serious misconduct that justifies removal through impeachment, or serving a clearly fixed term.
The Supreme Court was originally designed so that three-quarters of its members come from career judges and one-quarter from private legal practice, academia or the Public Ministry, the country's prosecutorial service, a mix meant to refresh the court periodically and guard against insularity, cronyism and stagnation, the columnist wrote. Periodic performance evaluation, the columnist argued, instead became a mechanism for governing majorities to shape the court's makeup to their own interests, eroding the incentive at the heart of the judicial career system.
Warning on the risks, and 2024 reform proposals
The columnist warned that officials who build such systems tend to forget how temporary political power is, and how costly it can be when the tools they designed fall into the hands of a different administration.
During debates on the 2024 constitutional reform, the columnist said four changes were proposed: that the Supreme Court be made up only of career judges; that the Council's membership return to its original 1994 size of seven members; that Supreme Court judges serve a fixed nine-year term; and that they no longer face periodic performance evaluation. The columnist said dropping the evaluations would restore an incentive for judges nationwide to build careers within the judiciary, spread out political parties' influence over the composition of the country's top court, and reduce the risks of insularity, undue esprit de corps and institutional stagnation.
A constitutional safeguard the columnist calls hollow
The columnist pointed to Article 181 of the constitution, which states that when the Council decides to remove a judge it must base that decision on grounds set out in law. Looking at the record since December 2011, the columnist concluded that the provision amounts to political hypocrisy dressed up as institutionalism, masking what is really a design for concentrating power.
Decisions made without proper justification undermine confidence in the results and discourage participation from those affected, the columnist added.
