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Haiti: Human Rights Representative on Judicial Council Resigns

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - Dilia Lemaire, the representative of human rights organizations who sat on the new Supreme Council of the Judicial Power (CSPJ) in Haiti, resigned on Thursday citing the circumstances that the three judiciary representatives to the Permanent Electoral Council were chosen.

Lemaire wrote in a letter that "we must see that the CSPJ, with its current chair, is not the body that will make the judiciary fully independent as prescribed by the Constitution and for which the human rights sector has worked so much to establish..."

The letter continued, "this month of work in the CSPJ in which you have refrred me, leads me to believe that our operations will depend on the will of the Executive. As a lawyer, members of institutions of human rights and law-abiding, my place is not within the council."

Lemaire leaves her permanent position on the council after the resignation earlier in the week of CSPJ Spokesman Nehemie Joseph.

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Background

On January 24th, the Haitian Presidency announced having received on that same day the three members that were chosen by the CSPJ to represent the judicial branch on the nine-member Permanent Electoral Council.

The public would later find out that the decision was made under irregular conditions. The Chairman of the CSPJ, Anel Joseph Alexis, and three other council members had been present when the choices were made; four out of nine council members, less than half of the body.

Since this decision, four of the five other members who were not present for the decision, including Lemaire, signed a resolution denouncing that the three members accepted by President Michel Martelly for the Permanent Electoral Council were not the will of the majority.