DR2028 analytical summary. This is a research brief prepared by the DR2028 movement summarizing the Dominican Republic's Constitution. It is not an official government publication. For the authoritative text, consult Gaceta Oficial No. 10805 of July 10, 2015.
Constitution of the Dominican Republic — 2015 text
Voted and proclaimed by the National Assembly on June 13, 2015 and published in Gaceta Oficial No. 10805 of July 10, 2015, this is the constitutional text currently in force: 277 articles organized into 15 titles, plus general and transitory provisions. It is the supreme norm of the Dominican legal order — Article 6 declares that any law, decree, regulation, or act contrary to it is null.
The state it defines
- Article 1: the Dominican people constitute a Nation organized as a free and independent State under the name República Dominicana.
- Article 2: sovereignty resides exclusively in the people.
- Article 4: government is essentially civil, republican, democratic, and representative, exercised through three independent powers: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.
- Article 7: the Dominican Republic is an Estado Social y Democrático de Derecho — a social and democratic state under the rule of law — organized as a unitary Republic.
- Article 268: the form of government is entrenched: no constitutional amendment may alter it.
Fundamental rights and guarantees (Title II, Articles 37–75)
Title II catalogs fundamental rights in four chapters: civil and political rights (Arts. 37–49 — including life, dignity, equality, liberty, expression, and property), economic and social rights (Arts. 50–63 — including health, work, and education), cultural and sports rights (Arts. 64–65), and collective and environmental rights (Arts. 66–67). These are backed by constitutional guarantees: due process (Art. 69), hábeas data (Art. 70), hábeas corpus (Art. 71), and the amparo action (Art. 72).
The three powers
- Legislative (Title III): exercised by the Congreso Nacional — a Senate of one member per province plus the Distrito Nacional (Art. 78), and a Chamber of Deputies of 190 members: 178 territorial deputies, 5 national deputies, and 7 representing Dominicans abroad (Art. 81).
- Executive (Title IV): the President is elected every four years by direct vote and may serve a second consecutive term, but may never again run for the presidency nor for the vice presidency (Art. 124). The President heads the State and government, commands the Armed Forces and National Police, and promulgates laws (Art. 128).
- Judicial (Title V) and constitutional control (Title VII): the Tribunal Constitucional guarantees constitutional supremacy; its decisions are final, irrevocable, and binding precedent (Art. 184). It has 13 members deciding by qualified majority (Arts. 184–186).
Elections, exceptions, and reform
- Title X (Arts. 208–217): suffrage is a right and a duty; the vote is personal, free, direct, and secret (Art. 208). The Junta Central Electoral organizes elections (Art. 212); the Tribunal Superior Electoral settles electoral disputes (Art. 214).
- Title XIII (Arts. 262–266): three states of exception — defense, internal commotion, and emergency — declared by the President with congressional authorization, with twelve expressly non-suspendable rights.
- Title XIV (Arts. 267–272): constitutional reform follows only the Constitution's own procedure; reforms touching fundamental rights require an approbatory referendum.
Source documents
Full text of the 2015 Constitution as held in the DR2028 library: PDF · HTML · DOCX · TXT
DR2028 relevance
Every DR2028 decree is drafted to operate inside this constitutional architecture — its separation of powers, its entrenched democratic form (Art. 268), its rights catalog, and its re-election limits are the boundaries our reform proposals respect and the standards our accountability decrees enforce. Where decrees touch electoral administration, they interface with the JCE/TSE framework of Title X; where they touch procurement and public administration, they answer to the principles of Articles 4 and 7.