Nine years after an article was published in the newspaper about court registries, denouncing their abuses and laziness, the registry of the Port-au-Prince district court seems to continue operating under the same conditions.
Nine years after the publication, in the newspaper, of an article about court registries, criticizing their abuses and carelessness, the registry of the Port-au-Prince first-instance court seems to continue operating under the same conditions. The registry, the true memory of the court, seems to be barely surviving. The conduct of criminal trials with jury assistance provides yet another example.Three weeks after these criminal sessions, which hadn’t been held in eight years, one of the original hearing notebooks disappeared. According to information gathered by the newspaper, this doesn’t seem to cause too much concern within the registry. The clerk responsible for keeping these notebooks confirmed it to the paper, as if it were just an ordinary incident. “We haven’t found the notebook yet. Sometimes it happens, and we find it later,” he told the journalist in a phone interview on Tuesday, August 18.
The courtroom ledger is used to record, as things happen, the main proceedings and events that take place during a hearing. It is thus an important part of the court’s archives and is the responsibility of the clerk’s office. The clerk, often called the “judge’s pen,” plays a key role in preserving and transcribing judicial acts. The ledger can also serve as a reference when drafting certain legal acts and court decisions. The clerk’s office then prepares the necessary copies, including for sending them to the public prosecutor’s office and ensuring they are carried out, whether it involves the release or the sentencing of a defendant.A clerk at the Court of Cassation, who agreed to comment on the situation for the newspaper, believes that this case highlights the malfunctions that still affect the judicial system. According to him, some clerks do not always follow the rules governing the keeping and management of judicial documents.
The president of the National Association of Haitian Clerks, Me Martin Ainé, finds the disappearance of a clerk’s register so soon after the hearings concerning. He reminds that the clerk is not allowed to take the register home. After the hearing, it must be returned and kept at the court registry.
Me Ainé emphasizes that no page of the court register should be torn out, removed, or go missing. If the disappearance of the document is indeed noticed, he believes an investigation should be launched to determine the circumstances in which this important piece of judicial records vanished. The court register is particularly important for courts and tribunals. In certain circumstances, the judge can use it to check how the hearing proceeded and the actions that were recorded. During a criminal hearing without a jury, the presiding judge can also use it as a reference when an error is noticed to revisit their initial decision within 24 hours.The chief clerk of the said court, Mr. Mozart Tassy, is doing his best to keep things in order. Well-versed in procedure, he’s clearly annoyed by the situation and is threatening to punish whoever is responsible for this mess.
The disappearance of such a document, especially given the resumption of criminal trials after several years of pause, raises questions about how court records are kept and, more broadly, about how the registry at the Port-au-Prince first-instance court operates.
