Originally published in The Haitian Times, featuring BAI’s Mario Joseph

Due to corruption and other issues impacting the functioning of the justice system in Haiti, major Haitian cases continue to be tried in US courts, rather than Haitian ones, as BAI’s Mario Joseph discusses.

Excerpt below:

“To legal experts and ordinary observers alike, the pace of justice in Haiti is unsurprising in the face of the U.S. justice system, particularly as Haiti’s courts fall into disarray. What is unexpected is the emerging pattern of crimes committed in Haiti being prosecuted in America. In addition to the Moïse prosecution, other recent high-profile cases in the U.S. include the conviction in Boston of a former Haitian mayor ordered to pay $15.5 million for a massacre committed in Les Irois in 2017. Another is the ongoing prosecution in New York of former President Michel Joseph Martelly and members of his administration for alleged misuse of $190 million collected from a $1.50 tax on money transfers and calls to Haiti.

“‘Haitian justice has become a corrupt system,’ said longtime attorney Mario Joseph, adding that Moïse’s case is a casualty of this corruption. ‘You have to have either money, the support of an authority [official] or power to be able to benefit from justice in the system.

“‘Faced with this corruption, with bad practices, we have no choice,’ said Joseph, executive director of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), a legal assistance organization, in Haiti. ‘We are forced to have partners outside to be able to bring cases before other jurisdictions, including the United States.'”

…

“‘After his [Jean Morose Viliena’s] crimes [against human rights defenders], the mayor found judges in the Haitian justice system who made it easier for him to avoid justice,’ said Joseph, who represented the victims in Haiti. ‘We in the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) have forced the courts of Jérémie and Les Cayes and the Court of Cassation in this case. But with the authorities, including the mayors, they do what they want.'”

Read full article here