Dominican Republic marks Ethics Day ‘without any’

Santo Domingo.- To mark ‘National Ethics’ Day on April 29 and in view of the recent resignation of Government Ethics director Marino Vinicio Castillo the movement Citizen Participation asked president Danilo Medina to appoint a citizen committed to the defense of ethical principles, government integrity and transparency in the Dominican Republic.

It said the new Ethics director should make a greater effort to comply with the Dominican government’s ethical guidelines.

Citizen Participation called the Ethics Commission’s results on public administration and Access to Public Information “poor insufficient.”

"In view of National Ethics Day the national scene couldn’t be more devastating and cause for grief, to verify that corruption and impunity reign, destroying institutions. The social model is the widespread lack of respect for the rules and the rule of law, establishing a pragmatism that denies the essence of public service, which is the wellbeing of the community," the entity said in a statement.

"A democratic state of law cannot be founded and democracy cannot develop in the midst of corruption and impunity," it said.

Citizen Participation said Ethics Day finds Dominican society with several landmark cases in which an important part of a branch of government fails to assume its role as a regulatory and legitimate mechanism of democracy and respects legal norms.