©️Pierre-Louis Facebook account
Port-au-Prince, September 2, 2025.- Meeting with Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé on Monday, September 1, the Bar of Port-au-Prince has strongly expressed its opposition to the preliminary draft of the new Constitution, denouncing a text elaborated "in catimini" and devoid of legitimacy. Lawyers plead for a national conference and reject any attempt to "constitutional coup d'état".
Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé met with the Bar Association of Port-au-Prince, Mr. Patrick Pierre-Louis, and members of the committee responsible for analysing the preliminary constitutional draft. The Head of Government acknowledged the difficulty of organising elections on the basis of the current Constitution, considering that reform was essential to avoid a deeper crisis.
However, representatives of the Bar have expressed serious reservations. In their view, any reform must be in accordance with legal standards and cannot be imposed without popular support. "Unless the people themselves decide about a change, it is unacceptable to bypass the legality," they insisted.
Invited the next day, Tuesday, on Panel Magic, the rapporteur of the Bar Commission, Mr. Josué Pierre-Louis, confirmed that the lawyers had not received the final text of the preliminary draft, even during their meeting with the Prime Minister. He denounces an opaque process: "We are facing a text elaborated in catini."
For Pierre-Louis, the central question is legitimacy. "A transitional government cannot take such a step alone. It should have convened a national conference bringing together all the forces in order to create a Constituent Assembly," he said, going so far as to call the authorities' initiative an attempt to "constitutional coup d'état".
W.A.
