Biography

Joaquín Balaguer was born on September 1, 1906 in Navarrete - Villa Bisonó, Santiago, Dominican Republic. He was a writer, known for Duvergé: El Patíbulo (1988), Review of the Day (1952) and Después de Trujillo (2014). He died on July 14, 2002 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

President of the Dominican Republic from 1960-1962, 1966-1978 and 1986-1996.

Someone has said that in Latin America the constitutions have been, are and still will be for a long time simple pieces of paper. Constitutions are laws that are voted every year and violated every day. What is valid in each country, in each era, in each historical moment, are not the principles but the men. The effectiveness of a constitution, like that of any law, depends on the honesty of the magistrate who must apply it and who is called to become the guardian of its organic provisions.

[About his blindness during the 1986 presidential run] I am not going to the National Palace to thread needles or shoot targets, i am going to govern by will of the people.