Haiti: Important meeting between the PM and the High Commissioner Volker Türk
Prime Minister a.i. Ariel Henry, in the presence of Ministers Jean Victor Généus (Foreign Affairs) and Me Emmelie Prophète Milcé (Justice a.i.), had a critical working session on the human rights situation, with Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on an official visit to Haiti until February 10 at the invitation of the Haitian Government
"We informed the High Commissioner of the Government's initiatives in human rights, including national dialogue, the creation of an enabling environment for the organisation of elections, the strengthening of the judicial system, and the reduction of preventive detention.
Haiti has taken good note of the recommendations within the framework of the Universal Policy Evaluation. We will begin, as soon as possible, to implement them. In about two years, we will be able to submit a progress report to the High Commissioner.
It was also an opportunity to highlight the many implications of the country's multidimensional crisis, in particular the right to life, to health, to respect for private life, to the free movement of persons and property, and property rights," declared the Head of Government on social networks at the end of this meeting.
Moreover, taking advantage of this official visit, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) urged High Commissioner Türk to support the rule of law in Haiti recognise the unconstitutional nature of the initiative to amend the Constitution of Haiti by referendum.
It is recalling that this referendum provided for in the December 21 Agreement of the de facto Government of Haiti, which is supported by the United Nations and the United States, and which a large part of Haitian civil society has condemned as a transparent power by a de facto government that does not have a single elected representative.
"High Commissioner Türk and the international community can support the rule of law in Haiti, or they can support the de facto government of Haiti and its Accord. They cannot support both," said Mario Joseph, general counsel of the BAI.
"The de facto government’s proposed amendments are exactly as illegal in Haiti as in the United States. Such a blatant disregard for the Constitution would unacceptable in Canada, the U.S. or European countries," said Brian Concannon, IJDH Executive Director.
Mario Joseph stressed that "if High Commissioner Türk takes his mandate seriously, he will investigate how the de facto authorities and its predecessors have systematically dismantled Haitians’ democracy since 2011, with the continuous support of the international community. He will listen to Haitians who will tell him that the solution to our crisis is not more dismantling and foreign interference, but a Haitian-led, democratic process."
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