One of the winning results of the litigation team led by María Mercedes Gonzalo Garachana’s firm included an advance in jurisprudence. Below, we quote the relevant parts:
Judgment No. 034-2018-SCON-01326, issued on November 18, 2018, by the First Chamber of the Civil and Commercial Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the National District.
Regarding the judge’s obligation to establish their jurisdiction to hear a case. “In accordance with the current state of our positive law, the first thing a court must examine in every process is its own jurisdiction; that is, whether or not it is legally capable of judging, even before ruling and considering any means of inadmissibility that may be invoked. The jurisprudential criterion, previously cited, and which we make use of, has its constitutional basis in article 69, numeral 2 of our Magna Carta, which provides as part of Effective Judicial Protection, that everyone has the right to be heard, within a reasonable time and before a competent jurisdiction; which is why we must verify whether or not we are competent for the case at hand.”
“It is then appropriate to understand competence as the legal power of a court to hear a matter submitted to its consideration, dividing it into “ratione materiae” or attribution, consisting of the power of a court to hear a specific matter by reason of the case in question, to the exclusion of all other courts, either by reason of the amount of the matter involved or the nature of the litigation, and the competence “rationae loci”, consisting of the territorial scope granted to a court to resolve conflicts that may arise within it, the first of these being considered of public order, the court having to observe it even ex officio, as established by article 20 of Law number 834.”
“Due to the consideration that concerns us, it is necessary to point out that the object of the present claim is limited to the court condemning the defendant to pay the sum of three million Dominican pesos (RD$3,000,000.00), in favor of each plaintiff, after the traffic accident that occurred on the twenty-ninth (29th) day of the month of May of the year two thousand eighteen (2018), on Rómulo Betancourt Avenue, corner of Higuemota Street, Bella Vista sector, of this city.”
“On the other hand, we need to point out that on the twenty-first (21st) day of February of two thousand seventeen (2017), Law number 63-17, on Mobility, Land Transportation, Transit and Road Safety, was promulgated, and its validity, as provided in its article 359, was from its promulgation.”
“That the entry into force of the aforementioned law expressly repealed several laws and decrees, among which is Law number 241, on Vehicle Transit, dated December twenty-eighth (28th) of 1967, as well as all those laws that are contrary to it, as provided in article 360 of the same Law 63-17.”
“Regarding the competence to hear the legal consequences of the events that the legislator has foreseen in Law number 63-17 on Mobility, Land Transportation, Transit and Road Safety, two venues have been established, one administrative, under the responsibility of INTRANT and the municipalities, and one jurisdictional, under the responsibility of the Special Traffic Courts of Peace.”
“Regarding jurisdictional competence, articles 302 and 305 of Law number 63-17 provide that the Special Traffic Courts of Peace of the place where the events occurred are competent to hear traffic violations that cause damage, and the civil liability generated must be judged in accordance with the Civil Code, the special laws in force, and the criteria of the dominant jurisprudence.”
“Highlight that the traffic courts, as special and exceptional courts, have a framework of competence, in principle, fixed in Law number 585, which creates them in the following north: “(…) one is created in each of the aforementioned demarcations that will be called Special Traffic Court of Peace and will be competent to hear, exclusively, violations of Law No. 241, on Vehicle Transit, dated December 28, 1967, except as provided in articles 51 and 220 thereof (…)” Causing the entry into force of the new regulations 63-17, that the competence of this court, as of February twenty-first (21st) of two thousand seventeen (2017), was extended to all the areas established by the nascent legislation.
“… the infractions that cause damages, whose origin comes from traffic accidents, as well as the claims for compensation for the damages produced by these, must be demanded, exclusively, before the Special Traffic Courts, since the legislator has granted them an extended competence to hear both the infraction and the repair in case damage has occurred, for which said court has in its hands the rules of common law, adding the legislator for such purposes, the repeal of any provision that is contrary to the rules that this special law as a nascent norm has established.”
In accordance with the provisions of articles 302 and 305 of Law number 63-17, cited above, as well as article 20 of Law number 834, since the purpose of the present process is the repair of damages caused as a consequence of a traffic accident, it is appropriate to declare ex officio the incompetence of this First Chamber of the Civil and Commercial Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the National District to hear the present process, and in such virtue decline before the Special Traffic Court of Peace of the municipality where the accident occurred that occupies us, as will be stated in the device of the present decision.”
