Santo Domingo.- Supreme Court president Jorge Subero Isa today urged the judges open the courts’ doors to the press, so the population knows how justice is administered.

Subero’s comments come in the wake of National District judge Clara Nivar’s ruling to keep photographers and cameramen from the some of the hearings in the case against Sobeida Felix and codefendants charged with money laundering.

He asked the magistrates to keep the Law’s restrictions on the media to a minimum so they can access the hearings and noted that the Constitution guarantees them free media to news sources. “The judges must not only open the doors to their heart, but the doors to the hearings and be more transparent to the public. The Constitution establishes free access to public information and exceptions, but although exceptions exist, the judges must keep them to a minimum.”

The Chief Justice, speaking during the induction of more than 60 lawyers in the Supreme Court said it’s never good for judges to oppose transparency and proceed with opacity. “All of the country’s judges must act with transparency. We obviously aren’t talking about specific cases but generaly, we call on the judges to open the doors of the courts, so that the citizens know it’s a question of how justice is administered in the name of the Republic.”

He said Dominican Republic is fortunate, unlike other countries, which consecrates the media’s free access to sources of information in its Constitution, while nations such as United States, Puerto Rico and Germany, press access to the hearings is controlled.