Friday at the National Palace, Me Jean Joseph Exumé, the President of the Presidential Commission for the Reform of Justice has officially handed over the draft revision of the Haitian Penal Code, to the President of the Republic, Michel Martelly.

The Presidential Commission for the Reform of Justice composed of Me Jean Joseph Exumé, Me Jean Vandal and Me Sybille Théard Mevs, created in January 2012 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-4723-haiti-justice-creation-of-a-presidential-commission-for-the-reform-of-the-justice.html , has done important work on Haitian Penal Code 180 years old, which have not undergone since then, no major changes. For the spokesman of the Commission, Me Jean Joseph Exumé, the latter worked independently and made significant innovations, through a technical committee, to a coding work by integrating some recent penal laws.

In the presence of Prime Minister, Paul Evans, the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Pierre Richard Casimir, the President of the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSPJ) Me Jules Cantave, representatives of the legislature, representatives of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps and civil society, the Head of State stressed the historic significance, sociological and political of the event in Haitian society and whose coronation will be the adoption by the next Legislature, of this draft Penal Code.

"Leaders have a duty to be attentive to different mutations, to the social and temporal evolutions in order to adapt constantly to the rules and standards. Any failure to do so poses a real threat to the sustainability of living together and the safeguarding of the interests of the nation which is, in fact, our greatest public good [...] Our society lives thanks the standards and codified rules that regulate the coexistence of all its members.

To the new measures in the framework of the new draft Penal Code must correspond the setting up of structural means. This is with the aim to cope with the new realities and to curb the drifts that the State has designed this new draft corpus juris. It is important to insist on the immediate outreach programs and on the medium term on this new project of Haitian Penal Code," informed the President of the Republic while concluding that the legislature must act sparingly on the new social realities.

HL/ HaitiLibre