September 16, 2011
Lyonette
Louis-Jacques
Starting Points for Researching Haitian Law
by Lyonette Louis-Jacques
September 16, 2011
Haiti is located in the West Indies, on the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. Its official languages are French and Haitian Créole. It shares a border with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic. It lies near Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the state of Florida in the U.S. It has a rich cultural heritage. However, researching Haiti’s law can be frustrating. Haiti is in the Caribbean, but works on Caribbean law mostly focus on English-speaking, Commonwealth Caribbean countries. Works on West Indian law tend to focus on the British West Indies. And works on Latin American law rarely discuss Haiti. Researchers may struggle to pin down legal resources for this small francophone, “créolophone” jurisdiction. The treasures of “la perle des Antilles” can be well-hidden. Researchers often have difficulty finding current Haitian law in the original French. Finding English, Spanish, or other language translations can be even harder. Luckily some resources make the quest for the law of Haiti less difficult for you and your patrons.
Christelle Vaval, Omar Ha-Redeye, Marjorie Florestal, Hope Lewis (IntLawGrrls blog), and others have written on legal issues faced by Haitians and efforts to help, especially in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. The legal issues include child trafficking, crime victimization (gender-based violence, sexual abuse, rapes, crimes in housing camps), unlawful evictions, inadequate housing, dangerous deportations (leading to issuance of precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights), immigration (e.g. need for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) extensions and redesignations in the U.S.), and access to justice and the courts. Pro bono advocates, NGOs, and others researching Haitian law need to find the current law in force. Therefore, they should look for research guides first to learn about the most readily available sources legal materials for Haiti and find out whether those sources provide sufficiently current materials.
Marisol Florén-Romero’s 2008 Globalex guide on “Researching Haitian Law” is a free web resource with a helpful introduction to Haiti’s history, government, and law, and legal literature. It lists sources on agricultural law, banking law, business law, constitutional law, criminal law, cultural property, electoral law, family law, human rights, intellectual property law, labor law, legal education, legal profession, maritime law, natural resources, real property, tax law, and telecommunications law. It also lists primary law sources — constitutions, codes, statutory compilations, treaties, court reports — and secondary sources of law — legal periodicals, news, and books. It has links to websites on Haitian law, including le juriste Haïtien and le Civiliste. It concludes with a brief bibliography. Reynolds & Flores’ Foreign Law Guide is a subscription database that does something similar in its Haiti section, but with broader depth of coverage. See also the Law Library of Congress’ Guide to Law Online: Haiti, Haiti: Legal Bibliography, Chantal Hudicourt Ewald’s “The Legal System of Haiti” (volume 7, Modern Legal Systems Cyclopedia (e-access via the World Constitutions Illustrated Library in HeinOnline)), and L’Etat de droit: Sources d’informations sur vingt-deux pays d’Afrique et Haïti (1997).
Alternatively, you can direct researchers to existing online databases. If they are looking for a specific constitution, code, law, book, or journal, you can point them to several digital collections with significant Haitian law content. The Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) not only indexes Haitian constitutional amendments, laws, decrees, and regulations, but it also has PDF full text of Le Moniteur, Journal officiel de la République d’Haïti (Haiti’s official gazette of laws, in French), back to 1953. GLIN includes searchable English summaries of the laws. Haiti’s bilateral and multilateral agreements can be found in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) and other online treaty sources from jurisdictions such as the U.S., Canada, and France (Base Pacte), Haiti has joined the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations (UN), and other international organizations, which means that the digital law collections of those organizations will cover Haiti. The UNHCR’s RefWorld and FAOLEX are particularly useful databases for Haitian law.
The LLMC Digital law library collection, compiled by the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project that I mentioned in a previous post, also provides useful resources. While LLMC Digital is a fee-based database, the Haiti digitized law content (anticipated to be about 800 titles when completed) is available for free to Haitian libraries and to the whole world. Universal access will enhance global knowledge of Haiti and its legal system. The LLMC Digital content is organized by constitutional, legislative, executive, judicial, and miscellaneous categories, the latter including treatises, periodicals, and documents on Haitian law, and sources on U.S.-Haiti relations.
About 600 items in the LLMC Haiti Legal Patrimony Collection are available at no-fee via the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) platform. The dLOC, of which LLMC is a member, has a separate Protecting Haitian Patrimony Initiative (PIHI). For more information, check the LLMC Newsletter (issues 46 & 47), Michigan Library Lends Documents to the Haiti Project, and the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project (Center for Research Libraries (CRL)). The non-profit Centre de Recherche et d’Information Juridique has selected primary and secondary Haitian law sources in its Bibliothèque virtuelle du droit haïtien. Another resource with selective content is the Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Américas which includes the 1987 Constitution of Haiti, its criminal procedure code, and a few criminal justice related titles. The Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C. includes key reference documents at its website. Gallica and AMICUS (described below) also contain Haitian legal materials in electronic format.
The databases above are great for immediate gratification (or frustration). Alternatively, if your library doesn’t own the print title needed or if you don’t find them in the above databases, you can identify other library holdings of Haitian legal materials in print and electronic format by checking catalogs such as Open WorldCat, AMICUS (choose “entire AMICUS database” to search through all Canadian library collections, including the e-content), CCfr (Catalogue collectif de France), Gallica (the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital collection), and COPAC (British and Irish university libraries). You can search the following Canadian catalogs in French for Haitian law (keywords: Haïti droit):
As well, the Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Information Catalog helps you find Haitian legal materials hidden in multi-national collections of law.
Checking catalogs (and research guides) will also give you an idea of the libraries that have strong collections on Haitian law and might have specialists with expertise who can help you or your patrons with questions. Libraries with notable print Haitian law collections include the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Florida. You might also consult other Florida libraries, libraries in francophone jurisdictions, and the libraries that contributed to the LLMC Haiti Project.
Authors, libraries, research institutes, organizations, agencies, and other key “people” resources concerned with Haitian legal issues such as the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Haitian Lawyers Association may also help. You can also contact library organizations such as the Caribbean Association of Law Libraries (CARALL) and the Association of Caribbean, University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL). Do not forget area studies and documents librarians. Finally, consider posting to CARALL-TALK, INT-LAW, or other listservs which might have document and legal information specialists who can help you help researchers locate Haitian law.
Haiti is located in the West Indies, on the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. Its official languages are French and Haitian Créole. It shares a border with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic. It lies near Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the state of Florida in the U.S. It has a rich cultural heritage. However, researching Haiti’s law can be frustrating. Haiti is in the Caribbean, but works on Caribbean law mostly focus on English-speaking, Commonwealth Caribbean countries. Works on West Indian law tend to focus on the British West Indies. And works on Latin American law rarely discuss Haiti. Researchers may struggle to pin down legal resources for this small francophone, “créolophone” jurisdiction. The treasures of “la perle des Antilles” can be well-hidden. Researchers often have difficulty finding current Haitian law in the original French. Finding English, Spanish, or other language translations can be even harder. Luckily some resources make the quest for the law of Haiti less difficult for you and your patrons.
Christelle Vaval, Omar Ha-Redeye, Marjorie Florestal, Hope Lewis (IntLawGrrls blog), and others have written on legal issues faced by Haitians and efforts to help, especially in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. The legal issues include child trafficking, crime victimization (gender-based violence, sexual abuse, rapes, crimes in housing camps), unlawful evictions, inadequate housing, dangerous deportations (leading to issuance of precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights), immigration (e.g. need for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) extensions and redesignations in the U.S.), and access to justice and the courts. Pro bono advocates, NGOs, and others researching Haitian law need to find the current law in force. Therefore, they should look for research guides first to learn about the most readily available sources legal materials for Haiti and find out whether those sources provide sufficiently current materials.
Marisol Florén-Romero’s 2008 Globalex guide on “Researching Haitian Law” is a free web resource with a helpful introduction to Haiti’s history, government, and law, and legal literature. It lists sources on agricultural law, banking law, business law, constitutional law, criminal law, cultural property, electoral law, family law, human rights, intellectual property law, labor law, legal education, legal profession, maritime law, natural resources, real property, tax law, and telecommunications law. It also lists primary law sources — constitutions, codes, statutory compilations, treaties, court reports — and secondary sources of law — legal periodicals, news, and books. It has links to websites on Haitian law, including le juriste Haïtien and le Civiliste. It concludes with a brief bibliography. Reynolds & Flores’ Foreign Law Guide is a subscription database that does something similar in its Haiti section, but with broader depth of coverage. See also the Law Library of Congress’ Guide to Law Online: Haiti, Haiti: Legal Bibliography, Chantal Hudicourt Ewald’s “The Legal System of Haiti” (volume 7, Modern Legal Systems Cyclopedia (e-access via the World Constitutions Illustrated Library in HeinOnline)), and L’Etat de droit: Sources d’informations sur vingt-deux pays d’Afrique et Haïti (1997).
Alternatively, you can direct researchers to existing online databases. If they are looking for a specific constitution, code, law, book, or journal, you can point them to several digital collections with significant Haitian law content. The Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) not only indexes Haitian constitutional amendments, laws, decrees, and regulations, but it also has PDF full text of Le Moniteur, Journal officiel de la République d’Haïti (Haiti’s official gazette of laws, in French), back to 1953. GLIN includes searchable English summaries of the laws. Haiti’s bilateral and multilateral agreements can be found in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) and other online treaty sources from jurisdictions such as the U.S., Canada, and France (Base Pacte), Haiti has joined the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations (UN), and other international organizations, which means that the digital law collections of those organizations will cover Haiti. The UNHCR’s RefWorld and FAOLEX are particularly useful databases for Haitian law.
The LLMC Digital law library collection, compiled by the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project that I mentioned in a previous post, also provides useful resources. While LLMC Digital is a fee-based database, the Haiti digitized law content (anticipated to be about 800 titles when completed) is available for free to Haitian libraries and to the whole world. Universal access will enhance global knowledge of Haiti and its legal system. The LLMC Digital content is organized by constitutional, legislative, executive, judicial, and miscellaneous categories, the latter including treatises, periodicals, and documents on Haitian law, and sources on U.S.-Haiti relations.
About 600 items in the LLMC Haiti Legal Patrimony Collection are available at no-fee via the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) platform. The dLOC, of which LLMC is a member, has a separate Protecting Haitian Patrimony Initiative (PIHI). For more information, check the LLMC Newsletter (issues 46 & 47), Michigan Library Lends Documents to the Haiti Project, and the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project (Center for Research Libraries (CRL)). The non-profit Centre de Recherche et d’Information Juridique has selected primary and secondary Haitian law sources in its Bibliothèque virtuelle du droit haïtien. Another resource with selective content is the Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Américas which includes the 1987 Constitution of Haiti, its criminal procedure code, and a few criminal justice related titles. The Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C. includes key reference documents at its website. Gallica and AMICUS (described below) also contain Haitian legal materials in electronic format.
The databases above are great for immediate gratification (or frustration). Alternatively, if your library doesn’t own the print title needed or if you don’t find them in the above databases, you can identify other library holdings of Haitian legal materials in print and electronic format by checking catalogs such as Open WorldCat, AMICUS (choose “entire AMICUS database” to search through all Canadian library collections, including the e-content), CCfr (Catalogue collectif de France), Gallica (the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital collection), and COPAC (British and Irish university libraries). You can search the following Canadian catalogs in French for Haitian law (keywords: Haïti droit):
As well, the Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Information Catalog helps you find Haitian legal materials hidden in multi-national collections of law.
Checking catalogs (and research guides) will also give you an idea of the libraries that have strong collections on Haitian law and might have specialists with expertise who can help you or your patrons with questions. Libraries with notable print Haitian law collections include the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Florida. You might also consult other Florida libraries, libraries in francophone jurisdictions, and the libraries that contributed to the LLMC Haiti Project.
Authors, libraries, research institutes, organizations, agencies, and other key “people” resources concerned with Haitian legal issues such as the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Haitian Lawyers Association may also help. You can also contact library organizations such as the Caribbean Association of Law Libraries (CARALL) and the Association of Caribbean, University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL). Do not forget area studies and documents librarians. Finally, consider posting to CARALL-TALK, INT-LAW, or other listservs which might have document and legal information specialists who can help you help researchers locate Haitian law.
Respond: make a comment | read the 4 comments
Share: Email | Save as PDF | Print
| Bookmark & Share |
| 
More columns on Columns: Legal Information | from Lyonette Louis-Jacques
Make a comment:
Note that some comments may be moderated. If you have not had an approved comment here before, your comment will be held for approval. We are glad to publish comments that address issues raised in the post or other comments on it and that contribute to a fruitful discussion. We do not publish comments that seek to promote commercial products, that make personal attacks, or that seek personal legal advice.
Although we do not require it, we ask that in making a comment you use your full name. You must supply a valid email address, which will not appear with your comment.
|
the count:
8642 posts | 11937 comments
recent comments  
This is the second in a series of ten tips dealing with cash flow reports and cash flow management. Gregory Nunn once said: “Never underestimate the value of cold cash.”… »»Practice Today’s Tip: Monitor UN documents with RSS Since I last looked, the United Nations Documents site has a new look and feel. For what the site is trying to deliver, … »»Research Last spring, Meritas’ Leadership Institute released a Social Media Guide for Lawyers. This helpful resource provided lawyers with an overview of the three main social media tools — LinkedIn, Faceb. […] »»Technology
-
-
-
Available online today are four new chapters of the publication Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report, which explores the socio-demographic and economic circumstances of Canadian women in general.
-
The bill amends the Constitution Act, 1867 by readjusting the number of members and the representation of the provinces in the House of Commons.
-
-
Blueseed plans to buy a ship and turn it into a floating incubator anchored in international waters off the coast of California.
-
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle.
-
-
"…the IPC has exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether a record is in the custody or control of a university in the context of an access request…"
-
These summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book.
More information.
-
Aliens - Exclusion and expulsion - Power to detain and deport - Minister’s certificate - Review - Evidence
In 2002, Harkat was detained pursuant to a ministerial security certificate issued under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) as a person inadmissible to Canada on grounds ...
-
Contracts - Formation of contract - Signing - Electronic signature
The plaintiff expressed an interest in purchasing the defendant’s (vendor’s) condo. The parties agreed to carry on their discussions through e-mail. Following an exchange of e-mails, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant was contractually bound to ...
-
Barristers and Solicitors - Relationship with client - Confidential communications - General
The petitioner was a Receiver appointed in March 2009 by a California court over the assets of GJB Enterprises Inc. (a “Ponzi scheme”) and its principals, the Berkes (the GJB parties). The court ordered ...
-
Practice - Costs - Funding before judgment - When interim or advance costs available
The plaintiffs were “direct to home” satellite based subscription program providers. Rex and other defendants offered “grey market” services to Canadian residents to facilitate the unauthorized reception in Canada of the plaintiffs’ ...
This is a listing of a few upcoming events in Canada of interest to lawyers, law students, legal librarians, and others involved in the practice of law.
Clicking on any event in the list below will give you access to more information and to links allowing you to see the full entry and to add the event to your own calendar.
Click this link for a fuller version of the TalkLaw/ParLoi calendar of events and for instructions as to how to add events and calendars to your own calendar.
|
This information regarding the Republic of Haiti judicial system is very helpful. Thank you for posting it.
What is nou mande e nou pase lod dapre atik 77 ko Enstriksyou Kriminel, tout isye ou ajan Fos Publik menen devan nou nan respe lalwa?
Mr. Spratt, I don't know if we have anyone who reads Haitian Créole here (and who would understand the question).
Anyone?
It probably helps to read the quote in context, so a cite to the original would help with translation. And definitely, if this will be for legally enforceable reasons, consult a specialist in Haitian law.
For casual purposes, I suggest plugging the quote into Google Translate (it does Haitian Creole -> English):
"nou mande e nou pase lod dapre atik 77 ko Enstriksyou Kriminel, tout isye ou ajan Fos Publik menen devan nou nan respe lalwa"
Results:
"we ask and we order according to article 77 co Enstriksyou criminal isye the silver Fos public prosecution in respect of our law?"
There's some garbage in the Google translation, but you get the gist of it. Keep in mind there's French in there.
"Enstriksyou" is likely "instruction" (so "ko Ensriksyou Kriminel" is likely "code of criminal procedure").
"ajan" is likely "agent", but Google Translate has "silver" which means Google thinks "ajan" is "l'argent"/money?
"Fos" = Force?
"menen devan" means "bring before"
Hope this helps!