A public prosecutor in the Dominican Republic has cautioned that the pursuit of rapid convictions and media pressure must not lead to the erosion of legal protocols and due process in criminal investigations.
Edwin Cuello, a prosecutor with the Dominican Republic's Public Ministry, warned that bypassing procedural rules creates a procedural borderline that ultimately weakens the state's ability to secure lasting convictions.
In a commentary on the balance between the state's punitive powers and the rights of the accused, Cuello argued that fundamental guarantees are not negotiable under the country's legal framework.
He pointed to recent high-profile administrative corruption trials in the Caribbean nation as evidence that strict adherence to the law, rather than procedural shortcuts, is the key to successful prosecutions.
The Dominican Republic has launched a series of sweeping anti-corruption investigations in recent years, targeting former government ministers, military officials and police officers over allegations of embezzlement and fraud.
The procedural borderline
Cuello described a blurry but crucial frontier in contemporary criminal procedural law where the state's desire to punish clashes with the fundamental rights of the defendant.
He warned that a desire for speed, media pressure or urgency during an investigation can mistakenly lead to the unnatural flexibilisation of legal protocols.
However, the prosecutor stated that this border is not a negotiable terrain or a margin of tolerance for state excess in the Dominican legal system.
He highlighted Article 38 of the Dominican Constitution, which establishes respect for human dignity as the unrenounceable foundation of the social and democratic state of law.
This constitutional architecture, Cuello argued, makes human dignity a binding normative mandate that conditions the validity of all actions taken by the judicial and punitive apparatus, rather than a mere lyrical statement at the top of the Magna Carta.
Fundamental principles
Human dignity acts as a filter that prevents any attempt to treat a human being as a mere object of prosecution, regardless of the nature or social impact of the alleged crime, Cuello said.
He noted that the investigated or accused person remains a subject of rights, and that strict compliance with procedural rules is exactly where their dignity is defended against arbitrariness.
The Dominican Criminal Procedure Code sets out 28 fundamental principles in its Preliminary Title, which Cuello described as the critical and mandatory route for the prosecuting body.
These principles include the primacy of the Constitution, the presumption of innocence, the prohibition of multiple prosecutions, the right to a prior trial, impartiality, and strict limits on precautionary measures.
Cuello emphasised that these principles must not be viewed as bureaucratic formalities designed to hinder investigations or as mere operational requirements.
Instead, the Public Ministry's line of investigation finds its greatest strength in strict observance of these criminal procedural regulations, he said.
The institutional shield
When criminal investigations stick strictly to legal protocols, lawful evidence collection and due process guarantees, they build an institutional shield that makes state action unassailable, according to the prosecutor.
He argued that both the legality and the legitimacy of criminal prosecution before the courts and society are forged through compliance with these protocols.
Cuello cited the complex administrative corruption cases processed in the Dominican Republic in recent years as unequivocal proof of this approach.
Securing exemplary convictions and building solid accusations in these high-profile national cases has not been the result of procedural shortcuts or rights violations, he said.
Instead, the prosecutor attributed their success to rigorous adherence to the rules of criminal investigation, scientific proof and the chain of custody.
Demonstrating that crime can be prosecuted without trampling on fundamental guarantees legitimises the accusatory system and restores citizens' trust in the administration of justice, Cuello added.
The core of due process
The debate over the procedural borderline becomes especially relevant when attempts are made to weigh rights against each other to relax guarantees, the prosecutor said.
While the proportionality test is a valid constitutional tool for weighing legal goods, Cuello warned that there is an unavailable hard core that can never be sacrificed on the procedural scales.
He argued that no calculation of opportunity can justify leaving a defendant defenceless, obtaining illicit evidence or violating minimum rights, stating that due process is the maximum expression of proportionality in state power.
When the state ignores a protocol or relativises a guarantee, it dangerously crosses the constitutional borderline and risks the sustainability of its own accusation, Cuello warned.
Conversely, rigorous observance of the 28 principles in the Criminal Procedure Code ensures that judicial decisions withstand the scrutiny of appeals and the passage of time, he said.
Cuello concluded that there is no effective criminal prosecution where human dignity is violated for an immediate result, adding that judicial experience shows true firmness from the Public Ministry lies in procedural impeccability rather than severity outside the law.
By respecting constitutional limits and investigative protocols, the state effectively pursues crime and secures significant convictions while legitimising its authority and consolidating the rule of law, he said.
