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Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc) Prosecution

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Overview

Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duva­lier
Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duva­lier, one of the most noto­ri­ous dic­ta­tors of the 20th Cen­tury, served as the Pres­i­dent of Haiti from 1971–1986, fol­low­ing the death of his father, François “Papa Doc” Duva­lier.  Gain­ing power at the age of 19, Jean-Claude Duva­lier soon asserted con­trol over the repres­sive regime cre­ated by his father.  The Duva­liers used the offi­cial mil­i­tary and police forces, as well as the para­mil­i­tary Volon­taires de la Sécurité Nationale (pop­u­larly known as the Ton­ton Macoutes), to vio­lently assert their con­trol with wide­spread impunity. While alleg­ing his sup­port for reforms and increased respect for human rights, Jean-Claude Duvalier’s regime con­tin­ued to per­pe­trate sys­tem­atic human rights abuses against Hait­ian cit­i­zens, including:

  • Cur­tail­ment of civil and polit­i­cal rights, includ­ing free­dom of the press and polit­i­cal opposition;
  • Arbi­trary deten­tion, exile, forced dis­ap­pear­ances, tor­ture, and extra-judicial killing of oppo­nents of the regime;
  • Abysmal prison con­di­tions, where many cit­i­zens died with­out hav­ing been con­victed of any crime;
  • Wide­spread cor­rup­tion, through which Duva­lier mis­ap­pro­pri­ated hun­dreds of mil­lions dol­lars of pub­lic funds through­out his Presidency.

Pros­e­cu­tion

Exiled in 1986, Jean-Claude Duva­lier returned to Haiti on Jan­u­ary 16, 2010.  He was soon charged with finan­cial and polit­i­cal vio­lence crimes.  Haiti’s duty to effec­tively inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute Duva­lier for crimes of his admin­is­tra­tion is clearly estab­lished in domes­tic and inter­na­tional law:

  • Arti­cle 276(2) of Haiti’s Con­sti­tu­tion domes­ti­cates all inter­na­tional legal com­mit­ments, mean­ing Haiti is bound to respect all inter­na­tional treaties to which it is party;
  • Haiti is party to both the Inter­na­tional Covenant on Civil and Polit­i­cal Rights and the Amer­i­can Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.  These treaties oblig­ate Haiti to pro­vide for the basic human rights of all per­sons within their juris­dic­tion, includ­ing an effec­tive rem­edy for vio­la­tions of such rights.
  • Accord­ing to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has declared that under inter­na­tional legal prin­ci­ples, crimes against human­ity and other seri­ous human rights abuses are not sub­ject to any statute of lim­i­ta­tions. The Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights has clas­si­fied the sys­tem­atic abuses of human rights under Duva­lier as crimes against humanity.

Our Role in the Prosecution

To date, IJDH/BAI has com­pleted sig­nif­i­cant work to sup­port the pros­e­cu­tion of Jean-Claude Duva­lier. IJDH/BAI filed exten­sive evi­dence con­cern­ing Duvalier’s polit­i­cal and finan­cial crimes with Haiti’s national pros­e­cu­tor and con­tin­ues to assist indi­vid­ual civil plain­tiffs to file com­plaints against Duva­lier for human rights vio­la­tions.  In addi­tion, IJDH/BAI sup­ported the cre­ation of a civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tion, the Citizen’s Col­lec­tive for Pros­e­cut­ing Duva­lier (known by its Cre­ole acronym, KOSIJID), aimed at increas­ing pub­lic aware­ness of the case and its impor­tance. IJDH/BAI staff attor­neys and legal fel­lows are assisted in this work by a com­mit­ted group of interns and pro bono assis­tance from the law firms of Ropes & Gray, Mintz Levin and Shear­man & Ster­ling.  With the assis­tance of these firms, IJDH/BAI has been able to sub­mit draft ques­tions to the Juge d’Instruction (see Fig­ure 2) to him help nav­i­gate the com­plex his­tory of the regime’s crim­i­nal activ­ity when ques­tion­ing Duvalier.

Overview of the Hait­ian Judi­cial System

A for­mer French colony, Haiti’s judi­cial sys­tem is largely based on the civil law sys­tem used in France in the early 19th Cen­tury.  Laws are cod­i­fied in a series of legal codes, includ­ing the civil and crim­i­nal codes.  Haiti’s Con­sti­tu­tion also defines basic legal rights of all Hait­ian cit­i­zens and makes clear that any inter­na­tional treaties that Haiti chooses to rat­ify becomes bind­ing in domes­tic tri­bunals as well.

The Min­is­ter of Jus­tice holds pri­mary respon­si­bil­ity for over­see­ing judi­cial mat­ters in Haiti, as well as respon­si­bil­ity for the secu­rity and police forces.  Please see Fig­ure 1 for an overview of the Hait­ian court sys­tem, as defined in the 1987 Hait­ian Constitution.

Fig­ure 1


In Haiti, indi­vid­ual civil com­plainants can join a case orig­i­nally brought on crim­i­nal grounds by the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment pros­e­cu­tor.  There­fore, once crim­i­nal charges have been filed, vic­tims attach indi­vid­ual civil claims seek­ing redress for crimes against human­ity onto the exist­ing case, to be heard together.

Com­plaints are usu­ally filed with the gov­ern­ment pros­e­cu­tor (Com­mis­saire au Gou­verne­ment) who may refer them to a Juge d’Instruction.  After receiv­ing a com­plaint, the Juge d’Instruction has three months to inves­ti­gate the com­plaint and deter­mine if there is suf­fi­cient basis for pros­e­cu­tion.  Because this three month period restarts with each new com­plaint filed, the period for gath­er­ing evi­dence and inves­ti­ga­tion by the judge may be extended, such as in the case of Duva­lier where addi­tional indi­vid­ual com­plainants con­tinue to file claims.  As nec­es­sary, the Juge d’Instruction may also request an exten­sion to this inves­ti­ga­tory period.  If the judge allows pros­e­cu­tion, the gov­ern­ment pros­e­cu­tor (and any indi­vid­ual legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civil com­plainants that have joined the case) may pre­pare and present their case before the appro­pri­ate court, see Fig­ure 2.  In the case of Duva­lier, crim­i­nal charges have been filed and are cur­rently before the Juge d’Instruction.  IJDH/BAI and oth­ers are now con­tin­u­ing to pre­pare and sub­mit the claims of indi­vid­ual civil complainants.

Fig­ure 2


 

 

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