Between Reform and Self-Protection: The CPT Faces the Trap of Impunity

On the eve of Christmas 2025, the Presidential Transitional Council (CPT) took an action that speaks volumes about its conception of power and justice. On December 24, it announced the postponement of the entry into force of the new Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, citing fears of supposed "legal insecurity." A classic argument, almost a reflex, in a country where instability too often serves as a justification for politically calculated decisions. But the real crux of the problem lies one day earlier. On December 23, the CPT published a decree on the functioning of the High Court of Justice.

Presented as a technical reform, the text immediately raised concerns in legal circles. In apparent contradiction with the law of June 27, 1904, and difficult to reconcile with Haiti's international commitments, particularly the United Nations Convention against Corruption, this decree appears to restrict the mechanisms for prosecuting the highest state officials.

The question is not whether a reform was necessary; it was. The organization of the High Court of Justice could not remain indefinitely vague. But the timing, the scope of the text, and its protective effect fuel a persistent suspicion: that of a reform designed less to strengthen the rule of law than to protect leaders against potential prosecution, in a context marked by persistent accusations of mismanagement of public funds.

By seeking to ward off hypothetical legal insecurity, the CPT seems primarily to fear effective justice. Caught between institutional reform and political self-protection, it has chosen an ambiguous path, risking reinforcing the idea that the transition seeks above all to organize its impunity rather than to prepare for genuine accountability.

Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet