Consultative commission fine-tunes the draft of a new law on expression and media

The Advisory Commission for Freedom of Expression, established by presidential decree last year, finished drafting the bill on freedom of expression and the media that it will present to the Executive Power last night. This draft will be discussed on Monday with the civil society sectors that participated in the working groups before being forwarded to President Luis Abinader. Namphy Rodriguez, the Advisory Commission’s director, thanked the group’s members as well as national and international organizations for their contributions to the creation of a new regulatory code for freedom of expression and the media across all platforms.

The commissioners approved the wording of more than 80 articles from the draft’s eleven chapters in a working meeting at the Listin Diario headquarters, which enshrine the broadest guarantees for freedom of expression and press in the country. Once the final phase of civil society consensus has been reached, the Advisory Commission will formally deliver the draft to President Abinader, completing the mission entrusted to him by decree 333-22, dated June 23, 2022.

The directors of El Nuevo Diario and Listin Diario, Persio Maldonado and Miguel Franjul were also present, as was the president of the Dominican College of Journalists, Aurelio Henriquez, and jurists Hermogenes Acosta de los Santos, Eric Raful, Jimena Conde Jiminian, Gabriela Beltré, and Elvira Lora.