Cuban Prosecutor’s Office studies updating confiscation procedure
HAVANA, Sept. 14th. In line with recent statements by the president of the Cuban Parliament, Esteban Lazo, about the relevance of the confiscation of property or merchandise from those who break the laws, the Attorney General’s Office is studying the improvement of the laws that govern the confiscation process on the island.
According to an article published on the official website of that high Cuban institution, the confiscatory administrative procedure in force in the country since 1994 “presents a high level of obsolescence”, compared to the transformations carried out in the legal order with the promulgation of the Constitution. of the Republic of Cuba in 2019.
“It is urgent to perfect its application; as a guarantee for effective administrative justice, achieving greater effectiveness and equality for the parties, as a paradigm of respect for fundamental rights,” the note states. In addition, it mentions the need to eliminate the legislative insufficiencies that limit the application of Decree Law 149 of 1994.
According to the text, in 1994 “in response to the demand of the majority of our people”, “effective and exemplary” measures were sought against those who obtained illegitimate assets, accumulating wealth and material goods outside of what is legally established.
It was no coincidence that the Cuban government put this Decree-Law into effect in the middle of the special period, while citizens were experiencing moments of scarcity and general precariousness, with only a few officials and managers with a certain economic prosperity.
Now, almost 30 years later, the Attorney General’s Office considered that these procedures must be brought into line with the reality of the country, marked by the takeoff of property and private initiative and the emergence of new economic sectors.
The 1994 Decree Law to which the text refers was known by Cubans as the Maceta Law, and, as the elders at home remember, it pitted the State against entrepreneurs and businessmen who had first had “free rein” and became rich, for which the Government ended up confiscating their properties and arresting many.
