SANTO DOMINGO.- The Constitution Revisory Assembly on Tuesday failed to clarify the ambiguous Law 305 on Coasts and Seas which doesn’t specify the citizens’ right to access their beaches, coasts, rivers, lakes and lagoons, rejecting the proposal to benefit from them, "without jeopardizing property private."

The text, rejected with 95 votes for (100 were needed for approval) and 54 against stipulated that “without jeopardizing the rights to private property, the national beaches and coasts, rivers, lakes and lagoons, are of free access to the public, in the conditions and forms the law determines."

Adding to the confusion, the lawmakers disregarded the agreement on the controversial legislation by the heads of the ruling PLD party, Leonel Fernandez, and of the opposition PRD, Miguel Vargas.

In that regard, the spokesman of the PRD’s deputies Ruddy González requested a revocation of the voting and a "recount" in today’s Assembly session, alleging that his colleagues "mistook" the motion by voting against it.

Most of the country’s major hotels place armed guards along the beach to keep non guests from using the swath Law 305 describes as “a strip marked by the high tide line and 60 meters inland, access to which cannot be impeded, without jeopardizing property private.”