Only a Good Knowledge of Law Can Defend the General Interest!
several years, I have observed that certain actors, eager to defend their interests, selectively mobilize constitutional and republican principles. This "à la carte" reading leads everyone to invoke the Constitution when it serves their cause, and to relativize it when it contradicts them.
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 9 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
For several years, I have observed that certain actors, eager to defend their interests, selectively mobilize constitutional and republican principles. This "à la carte" reading leads everyone to invoke the Constitution when it serves their cause, and to relativize it when it contradicts them. However, in principle, the application of the constitutional text should not vary according to circumstances: the rule of law must produce predictable solutions.
The function of a Constitution is precisely to ensure this predictability of political power by framing the exercise of authority: it organizes bodies, defines their competencies, and sets out procedures, in order to constitute an ordered and coherent system. The 1987 Constitution aligns with this logic. The position of Prime Minister that it institutes is not an isolated element: the Primature, led by the Prime Minister, is legally articulated with other institutions. Therefore, the non-existence or dysfunction of one of them weakens the entire constitutional architecture.
This was seen under the administration of President Jovenel Moïse: the Haitian Parliament became durably dysfunctional due to a lack of elections allowing for the renewal of both Chambers. In such a context, the sudden disappearance of the head of state created a power vacuum, while making it difficult to implement a solution strictly in line with the ordinary succession mechanisms provided by the Constitution. Furthermore, Ariel Henry, who subsequently exercised power, was not in office at the time of the president's assassination.
What is the purpose of a Prime Minister in the absence of parliament?
The analysis of relations between the presidency, the Primature, and Parliament leads me to ask the following question: what is the purpose of the Prime Minister's position when Parliament is dysfunctional? In other words, how could the Council of Ministers, placed under the authority of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, govern the country without having been invested with its own constitutional power? It is to this question — which I will answer within the framework of this reflection — that I submit the attention of the national legal community, law professors, jurists, as well as political leaders. Considering the Constitution as a coherent whole, whose unity implies the articulation of all its parts, I base my approach on systems theory, which postulates that any phenomenon must be studied as a system, i.e., as a complex set of dynamically interacting elements. My approach aims to demonstrate that the 1987 Constitution provides its own operating mechanisms to ensure political stability and the governance of the country. Therefore, any disturbance affecting one of its bodies necessarily places the exercise of power outside our constitutional and democratic system. I therefore put forward the following hypothesis, stemming from the specific question posed above: in the current situation, the Council of Ministers, as an instance of responsibility under Article 149 of the Constitution, does not exist. However, a decree recently published by the de facto power of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé announces that, in application of Article 149 of the Constitution, it is now the Council of Ministers, under the authority of the Prime Minister, that would benefit from the entirety of executive power. I wonder: why is it precisely when all institutions created to enable the implementation of the Constitution are in a state of dysfunction that our rulers claim to want to apply it? The Prime Minister — who, given his background, seems to misunderstand the functioning of the State, both in theory and in practice — shoots himself in the foot by agreeing to publish a decree stating that the Council of Ministers, placed under his authority, governs the country. This decision, dictated by certain jurists and political leaders, now traps the Prime Minister in a labyrinth. It must be said: the love of power and money has rendered the knowledge of some jurists futile. This profound ignorance of the elites in the management of public affairs therefore constitutes an opportunity for the masses to awaken. By admitting that it is the Council of Ministers that governs the country, one simultaneously admits that only a Haitian Parliament — which, precisely, does not exist — could disapprove of a minister or censure them, by virtue of the principle of the political responsibility of the ministerial cabinet before parliamentary authorities. What legal blindness! On the Political Authority of a Council of Ministers
Legal doctrine teaches us that the power of a ministerial cabinet in a presidential system is not the same as in a parliamentary system. There is no single presidential system, just as there is no single parliamentary system: there are presidential systems and parliamentary systems. Therefore, the French parliamentary system cannot be set up as a judge of the rationality of the Haitian political system. In every Constitution, there is the general and the particular. However, it is the particular that forms the rationality of a constitutional text: its factual anchoring. A Constitution is not drafted in a vacuum. Each norm is designed to solve a specific problem, and this problem constitutes the raison d'être of the norm. In a presidential system, the ministerial cabinet has no political responsibility. In the United States, for example, which has had a presidential system for over two centuries, Secretaries of State are chosen and appointed by the president, after Senate approval. The president alone holds executive power. He appoints and dismisses, at his discretion, the Secretaries of State, who are merely his collaborators, tasked with assisting him in the management of public affairs. He thus combines in his hands the functions of head of state and head of government. He conducts the nation's policy and is not politically responsible before Congress. The dominant principle is that of reciprocal irrevocability. Following my reading of the 1987 Constitution, the Prime Minister, in a democratic context, benefits from a dual legitimacy: first, that which he receives from the President of the Republic, elected by direct universal suffrage, who designates him; then, that conferred upon him by Parliament, which ratifies the presidential choice and approves his general policy statement, transformed into a mandate and an act of commitment. This means that the political responsibility of the president is assumed directly before the people during his election, then consecrated before the National Assembly during his oath-taking; that of the Prime Minister, meanwhile, is built before the Chambers through the ratification of his general policy statement. It is precisely this legitimacy obtained from Parliament that confers political authority upon the Council of Ministers and establishes its political responsibility. By virtue of the principle of government responsibility before Parliament, each minister is accountable for their portfolio before it and cannot be revoked by either the President of the Republic or the Prime Minister. In our Constitution, ministers are responsible for the conformity of their actions with the law. In no case can they claim to have been "compelled" by the president or the Prime Minister to perform an act contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic: they are governors, not mere executors. The Council of Ministers, for all decisions that commit the nation, is accountable and answerable only to the elected representatives of the people — deputies and senators. In the absence of responsibility before Parliament, the Council of Ministers ceases to be the political body called upon to govern the country. In the current situation, the ministerial cabinet led by Mr. Fils-Aimé is only responsible to itself: it is reduced to self-monitoring in the absence of Parliament. The ministers placed under his authority are then merely collaborators. Public power can only act if the Constitution authorizes it. However, under current conditions, Prime Minister Fils-Aimé has no competence explicitly based on the Constitution. Article 149, which provides for a provisional exercise of executive power in the event of a presidential vacancy, therefore becomes inapplicable. Under these circumstances, he cannot rely on this provision to establish his authority. Mr. Fils-Aimé must first clarify his status and the nature of his power, because, in practice, he is no longer subject to the principles of constitutional legality: his action seems to stem from a different logic. How can the Prime Minister negotiate a ministerial reshuffle with certain political sectors while claiming to base his authority on Article 149 of the Constitution? If there is a presidential vacancy, when was it observed, and by which authorized body? If the revocation of ministers becomes a prerogative of Prime Minister Fils-Aimé, then ministers are no longer members of a responsible government, but high-ranking officials placed under his direct authority. In the absence of Parliament, the Council of Ministers ceases to be a political body backed by electoral legitimacy; it becomes, in fact, a subordinate body. In this situation of unconstitutionality, the Prime Minister exercises quasi-total control over the governmental apparatus, while the Council of Ministers is reduced to an essentially consultative role in major state decisions. This concentration of executive power in the hands of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé amounts to monocephalism — a mode of institutional organization that does not exist in Haiti. For a Patriotic Dialogue
The patriotic dialogue evoked by Josué Pierre-Louis is necessary and desirable, but it can only take place between patriots convinced that the country's interest must take precedence over the defense of particular interests. What we need are leaders determined to respect and enforce the republican and democratic framework of the State, and to submit to the law in the same way as citizens. The effectiveness of law and sanctions: this is what the Republic must adhere to in order to restore order. But without the support of moral, intellectual, political, and economic forces, laws — however excellent they may be — remain without effect. The condition for the rule of law and the general interest is the will, among both rulers and the governed, to respect the common rule. This begins with the education of elites. Respect for the law is first and foremost a culture: it is learned. Training women and men means preparing a society capable of governing itself. Sending elites to the school of democracy — and to school, period — must be the first step in an emergency policy. What can the Prime Minister do? Can he establish a "sovereign dictatorship," as eminent Professor Dr. leSauveur Pierre Étienne highlighted, referring to Carl Schmitt's theory? Does he possess real political legitimacy to implement an unlimited and transitional regime aimed at creating a new legal or political order? I doubt it, since Fils-Aimé did not come to power by his own strength, nor by an autonomous accomplishment, but following a decision attributed to the United States of America, which, today, through the American ambassador in Haiti, exerts a decisive influence on the country's political orientations. In my opinion, the diplomat's interventions in the United States Senate leave no doubt about the American agenda in Haiti. The debate on the political responsibility of the Council of Ministers, although it presents undeniable academic interest, becomes secondary in light of the reality of power dynamics. We must acknowledge: faced with the country's collapse, exacerbated by our inability to produce lasting solutions, the decisive force remains that of the United States, whose influence weighs on the essential. In such a difficult context, where the suffering of the masses exceeds the capacity of words to describe it, the precariousness of intellectuals constitutes one of the greatest dangers for the nation. Do we still have the collective strength necessary to change things in the general interest and demand, as a society, that public authorities' decisions be based on a legitimate and legal foundation, in order to guarantee the purpose of political and administrative action? Sonet Saint-Louis av
Professor of Constitutional Law and Legal Research at the Faculty of Law and the State University of Haiti.
Professor of Philosophy
Université du Québec à Montréal
Montreal
The analysis of relations between the presidency, the Primature, and Parliament leads me to ask the following question: what is the purpose of the Prime Minister's position when Parliament is dysfunctional? In other words, how could the Council of Ministers, placed under the authority of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, govern the country without having been invested with its own constitutional power? It is to this question — which I will answer within the framework of this reflection — that I submit the attention of the national legal community, law professors, jurists, as well as political leaders. Considering the Constitution as a coherent whole, whose unity implies the articulation of all its parts, I base my approach on systems theory, which postulates that any phenomenon must be studied as a system, i.e., as a complex set of dynamically interacting elements. My approach aims to demonstrate that the 1987 Constitution provides its own operating mechanisms to ensure political stability and the governance of the country. Therefore, any disturbance affecting one of its bodies necessarily places the exercise of power outside our constitutional and democratic system. I therefore put forward the following hypothesis, stemming from the specific question posed above: in the current situation, the Council of Ministers, as an instance of responsibility under Article 149 of the Constitution, does not exist. However, a decree recently published by the de facto power of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé announces that, in application of Article 149 of the Constitution, it is now the Council of Ministers, under the authority of the Prime Minister, that would benefit from the entirety of executive power. I wonder: why is it precisely when all institutions created to enable the implementation of the Constitution are in a state of dysfunction that our rulers claim to want to apply it? The Prime Minister — who, given his background, seems to misunderstand the functioning of the State, both in theory and in practice — shoots himself in the foot by agreeing to publish a decree stating that the Council of Ministers, placed under his authority, governs the country. This decision, dictated by certain jurists and political leaders, now traps the Prime Minister in a labyrinth. It must be said: the love of power and money has rendered the knowledge of some jurists futile. This profound ignorance of the elites in the management of public affairs therefore constitutes an opportunity for the masses to awaken. By admitting that it is the Council of Ministers that governs the country, one simultaneously admits that only a Haitian Parliament — which, precisely, does not exist — could disapprove of a minister or censure them, by virtue of the principle of the political responsibility of the ministerial cabinet before parliamentary authorities. What legal blindness! On the Political Authority of a Council of Ministers
Legal doctrine teaches us that the power of a ministerial cabinet in a presidential system is not the same as in a parliamentary system. There is no single presidential system, just as there is no single parliamentary system: there are presidential systems and parliamentary systems. Therefore, the French parliamentary system cannot be set up as a judge of the rationality of the Haitian political system. In every Constitution, there is the general and the particular. However, it is the particular that forms the rationality of a constitutional text: its factual anchoring. A Constitution is not drafted in a vacuum. Each norm is designed to solve a specific problem, and this problem constitutes the raison d'être of the norm. In a presidential system, the ministerial cabinet has no political responsibility. In the United States, for example, which has had a presidential system for over two centuries, Secretaries of State are chosen and appointed by the president, after Senate approval. The president alone holds executive power. He appoints and dismisses, at his discretion, the Secretaries of State, who are merely his collaborators, tasked with assisting him in the management of public affairs. He thus combines in his hands the functions of head of state and head of government. He conducts the nation's policy and is not politically responsible before Congress. The dominant principle is that of reciprocal irrevocability. Following my reading of the 1987 Constitution, the Prime Minister, in a democratic context, benefits from a dual legitimacy: first, that which he receives from the President of the Republic, elected by direct universal suffrage, who designates him; then, that conferred upon him by Parliament, which ratifies the presidential choice and approves his general policy statement, transformed into a mandate and an act of commitment. This means that the political responsibility of the president is assumed directly before the people during his election, then consecrated before the National Assembly during his oath-taking; that of the Prime Minister, meanwhile, is built before the Chambers through the ratification of his general policy statement. It is precisely this legitimacy obtained from Parliament that confers political authority upon the Council of Ministers and establishes its political responsibility. By virtue of the principle of government responsibility before Parliament, each minister is accountable for their portfolio before it and cannot be revoked by either the President of the Republic or the Prime Minister. In our Constitution, ministers are responsible for the conformity of their actions with the law. In no case can they claim to have been "compelled" by the president or the Prime Minister to perform an act contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic: they are governors, not mere executors. The Council of Ministers, for all decisions that commit the nation, is accountable and answerable only to the elected representatives of the people — deputies and senators. In the absence of responsibility before Parliament, the Council of Ministers ceases to be the political body called upon to govern the country. In the current situation, the ministerial cabinet led by Mr. Fils-Aimé is only responsible to itself: it is reduced to self-monitoring in the absence of Parliament. The ministers placed under his authority are then merely collaborators. Public power can only act if the Constitution authorizes it. However, under current conditions, Prime Minister Fils-Aimé has no competence explicitly based on the Constitution. Article 149, which provides for a provisional exercise of executive power in the event of a presidential vacancy, therefore becomes inapplicable. Under these circumstances, he cannot rely on this provision to establish his authority. Mr. Fils-Aimé must first clarify his status and the nature of his power, because, in practice, he is no longer subject to the principles of constitutional legality: his action seems to stem from a different logic. How can the Prime Minister negotiate a ministerial reshuffle with certain political sectors while claiming to base his authority on Article 149 of the Constitution? If there is a presidential vacancy, when was it observed, and by which authorized body? If the revocation of ministers becomes a prerogative of Prime Minister Fils-Aimé, then ministers are no longer members of a responsible government, but high-ranking officials placed under his direct authority. In the absence of Parliament, the Council of Ministers ceases to be a political body backed by electoral legitimacy; it becomes, in fact, a subordinate body. In this situation of unconstitutionality, the Prime Minister exercises quasi-total control over the governmental apparatus, while the Council of Ministers is reduced to an essentially consultative role in major state decisions. This concentration of executive power in the hands of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé amounts to monocephalism — a mode of institutional organization that does not exist in Haiti. For a Patriotic Dialogue
The patriotic dialogue evoked by Josué Pierre-Louis is necessary and desirable, but it can only take place between patriots convinced that the country's interest must take precedence over the defense of particular interests. What we need are leaders determined to respect and enforce the republican and democratic framework of the State, and to submit to the law in the same way as citizens. The effectiveness of law and sanctions: this is what the Republic must adhere to in order to restore order. But without the support of moral, intellectual, political, and economic forces, laws — however excellent they may be — remain without effect. The condition for the rule of law and the general interest is the will, among both rulers and the governed, to respect the common rule. This begins with the education of elites. Respect for the law is first and foremost a culture: it is learned. Training women and men means preparing a society capable of governing itself. Sending elites to the school of democracy — and to school, period — must be the first step in an emergency policy. What can the Prime Minister do? Can he establish a "sovereign dictatorship," as eminent Professor Dr. leSauveur Pierre Étienne highlighted, referring to Carl Schmitt's theory? Does he possess real political legitimacy to implement an unlimited and transitional regime aimed at creating a new legal or political order? I doubt it, since Fils-Aimé did not come to power by his own strength, nor by an autonomous accomplishment, but following a decision attributed to the United States of America, which, today, through the American ambassador in Haiti, exerts a decisive influence on the country's political orientations. In my opinion, the diplomat's interventions in the United States Senate leave no doubt about the American agenda in Haiti. The debate on the political responsibility of the Council of Ministers, although it presents undeniable academic interest, becomes secondary in light of the reality of power dynamics. We must acknowledge: faced with the country's collapse, exacerbated by our inability to produce lasting solutions, the decisive force remains that of the United States, whose influence weighs on the essential. In such a difficult context, where the suffering of the masses exceeds the capacity of words to describe it, the precariousness of intellectuals constitutes one of the greatest dangers for the nation. Do we still have the collective strength necessary to change things in the general interest and demand, as a society, that public authorities' decisions be based on a legitimate and legal foundation, in order to guarantee the purpose of political and administrative action? Sonet Saint-Louis av
Professor of Constitutional Law and Legal Research at the Faculty of Law and the State University of Haiti.
Professor of Philosophy
Université du Québec à Montréal
Montreal
