After stabilizing the country, holding elections, and installing a legitimate, democratically elected government, security is an area where progress is being made. What are we going to do now?
I think that it is very important now to help Haiti establish a basic rule of law. We are working on reforming the Haitian national police, on reforming the prison system, but I also think that reform of the justice system is necessary and indispensable. This is the other great pillar on which the rule of law is based.
However, this does not depend on the executive branch, that is the President or the government. It depends on Parliament. The government has tabled three laws in Parliament, laws dealing with the status of the judiciary, with codes for the judiciary, and with the judiciary's governing council. This is going to bring about the independence and the professional status of the judges. It is now in the hands of Parliament, but it is not moving forward. If something could be done to motivate them into passing those three laws, it would be really fantastic. With that as a starting point, I think that they could move forward on all other fronts. For example, more than 80% all the prisoners in Haiti have never seen a judge. There are no files, there is nothing, no formal charges, nothing. It is a most serious violation of human rights. I think our efforts now should be on the establishment of the rule of law. That is what is going to allow the country to develop economically.
The international community cannot afford to subsidize Haiti forever and ever and ever. So we have to establish this minimum level of the rule of law to motivate investors and the diaspora to come back to Haiti and make this workable, and to have their own resources and their own income. But I don't see the diaspora or any other investors or tourists coming back to Haiti if we don't have this minimum level of rule of law. So this is where we have to concentrate right now. We're working together in a very coordinated manner with the international community, bilateral donors, and everyone in this direction.