Dominican Republic

• The Constitution, the highest law
• Codes based on the French codes, such as the Civil Code and the Commercial Code
• Decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court of Justice

• The Constitutional Tribunal, which reviews laws and rights cases
• The Supreme Court of Justice, and courts of appeal
• Courts of first instance and justices of the peace

A law degree (licenciatura) and registration with the Dominican Bar Association.

• It is a Spanish-speaking country whose basic codes come from France, because of a period of Haitian and French influence in the nineteenth century.
• Its codes have been updated many times but keep the French structure.
• A Constitutional Tribunal handles constitutional matters, apart from the Supreme Court.

Haiti, France, Spain, Mexico, Colombia

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Dominican Republic as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.