{"id":493221,"date":"2025-12-02T14:29:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/fuerza-del-pueblo-responds-to-jces-summons-and-defends-the-constitutional-nature-of-the-march-of-the-people\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T14:29:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:29:34","slug":"fuerza-del-pueblo-responds-to-jces-summons-and-defends-the-constitutional-nature-of-the-march-of-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/fuerza-del-pueblo-responds-to-jces-summons-and-defends-the-constitutional-nature-of-the-march-of-the-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuerza del Pueblo responds to JCE’s summons and defends the constitutional nature of the “March of the People”"},"content":{"rendered":"Santo Domingo. <\/strong>– The party Fuerza del Pueblo <\/a>(FP) maintains that the Marcha del Pueblo was a civic, peaceful, and citizen demonstration, focused on the demand for solutions to the high cost of living, insecurity, blackouts, and the deterioration of public services, as reported by multiple national media outlets.\n\nThe opposition organization reported that it formally submitted to the Central Electoral Board (JCE) a Response Act to the “Intimidation and Warning Act” number 1056\/2025, through which the electoral body warns that the activity called March of the People, held last November 30, “could” be confused with early electoral propaganda and lead to possible administrative sanctions.\n\nIn response to the JCE, the Fuerza del Pueblo recalls that the Constitution of the Republic recognizes, in its articles 47 (freedom of association), 48 (right to peaceful assembly) and 49 (freedom of expression and information), the right of every person to organize, assemble and demonstrate without prior permission or censorship, as well as to express ideas and opinions by any means.\n\n\n

You can also read<\/strong>: Interior and Police and Metaldom destroy 3,945 weapons to prevent them from returning to the streets<\/a><\/p>\n\n\nLikewise, it cites Article 216 of the Constitution, which assigns political parties, groups, and movements the essential function of serving the national interest, collective well-being, and the integral development of Dominican society, which includes accompanying and channeling the social demands of the citizenry.\n\nFuerza del Pueblo emphasizes that fundamental rights can only be limited by organic laws, in accordance with articles 74 and 112 of the Magna Carta, therefore no administrative unit of the JCE can, through a simple act of a bailiff, restrict the legitimate exercise of social protest or reinterpret a civic demonstration as if it were electoral propaganda.\n\nThe document filed before the JCE expressly cites the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. In particular, it recalls that judgment TC\/0168\/15 establishes that political parties enjoy the fundamental right of assembly and public demonstration on equal terms as any citizen or group of citizens, without their partisan nature diminishing their legitimacy to exercise said right outside of electoral campaign periods.\n\nLikewise, sentence TC\/0092\/19 is invoked, in which the Court points out that freedom of expression, information, and opinion is a pillar of the social and democratic rule of law, with both an individual and collective dimension, which protects both those who express themselves and those who receive the information. These criteria, FP highlights, reinforce the constitutional protection of civic demonstrations and the role of parties in articulating social demands.\n\n\n

Fuerza del Pueblo underlines that Law 20-23 itself, the Organic Law on the Electoral Regime, clearly distinguishes between:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.  Actos de campa\u00f1a o proselitismo dirigidos a captar votos, definidos en los art\u00edculos 164, 165 y 166 como manifestaciones, m\u00edtines, reuniones p\u00fablicas y actos cuyo prop\u00f3sito es expresar adhesi\u00f3n o captar votos a favor de candidatos u organizaciones pol\u00edticas; y\n\n2.  Reuniones y manifestaciones de car\u00e1cter social o ciudadano, que no persiguen la promoci\u00f3n de candidaturas ni la solicitud del voto.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\nIn that sense, the party maintains that during the March of the People, no candidacies were promoted, no votes were solicited, no banners supporting particular aspirations were displayed, nor were campaign slogans formulated, but rather social demands widely documented by the national press were expressed: high cost of living, problems in health and education, blackouts, insecurity, and deterioration of public services.\n\nThe organization clarifies that the use of colors, symbols, or partisan slogans by citizens in a social protest is not prohibited by law and does not, in itself, constitute early electoral propaganda, since the regulations require the existence of a message aimed at promoting candidacies or capturing votes to configure a proselytizing act.\n\nThe JCE’s Act of Intimation and Warning acknowledges that the elements used in the “Marcha del Pueblo” “could constitute” political-party acts and, on that basis, urges FP to “adjust” its activities, under penalty of possible sanctions under article 308 of Law 20-23.\n\nFuerza del Pueblo warns that constructing warnings and possible sanctions based on possibilities and not on concrete and verifiable facts violates the principles of due process, enshrined in articles 68 and 69 of the Constitution, which require adequate motivation, clear identification of the infringing behaviors, and proportionality in the actions of the administrative bodies.\n\nThe party recalls that the March of the People was announced publicly in advance as a social protest, and that at no time did the JCE make prior observations or warnings about the call. Therefore, it considers that a subsequent intimidation based on conjectures sets a risky precedent for the exercise of citizen protest.\n\nIn its Response Act, Fuerza del Pueblo requests that the Plenary of the JCE reconsider and rectify the criterion assumed by the unit that issued the summons, particularly the thesis that the use of party colors, symbols, or slogans in a social protest can be equated, by itself, to an act of early electoral propaganda.\n\nThe party warns that maintaining that criterion would seriously limit the constitutional powers of the parties to organize, participate in public debate, and support social causes. Furthermore, it would imply a practical restriction of the rights of assembly, association, and expression of the citizenry.\n\nFuerza del Pueblo recalls that only by organic law can limits be established on fundamental rights and that the JCE, as the guarantor body of electoral equity, is called to protect the civic space and not to reduce it through expansive interpretations of the regulations.\n\nFinally, Fuerza del Pueblo reaffirms its respect for electoral institutions and the competencies of the Central Electoral Board, while insisting on its duty to defend the fundamental rights of citizens and the constitutional nature of peaceful social protest.\n\nThe party ratifies that the November 30th March of the People was a civic and citizen action, in accordance with the Constitution, the laws, and the best democratic traditions of the country. Furthermore, it announces that it will continue to support the peaceful expressions of the Dominican people in the face of the high cost of living, insecurity, and the deterioration of public services, always in strict adherence to the legal system.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Santo Domingo. – The party Fuerza del Pueblo (FP) maintains that the Marcha del Pueblo was a civic, peaceful, and citizen demonstration, focused on the demand for solutions to the high cost of living, insecurity, blackouts, and the deterioration of public services, as reported by multiple national media outlets. The opposition organization reported that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-24jb","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Paola Castillo","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cropped-paola-castillo-f-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}