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Can Haiti's Police Reforms Be Sustained?

WB01395_.gif (262 bytes)V. The Inspector General

As we noted earlier, the mandate of the inspector general (IG) is to receive complaints and conduct inquiries regarding alleged human rights violations committed by HNP personnel and other police crimes. The IG is also to conduct regular "administrative audits" (inspection de services) to assure that police regulations are followed and police resources are properly utilized. He is then to prepare reports and make recommendations for improvements. Lawyer Luc Eucher Joseph has been inspector general since March 1996.(39)

One logistical problem with the IG's work is that the office remains centralized in Port-au-Prince with no regional bureaus. Every investigation is conducted from Port-au-Prince and transportation shortages create delays in reaching more distant areas of Haiti. UN police advisors state that the IG's investigations are thorough and professional though they note that the inspectors are overwhelmed by the number of cases.  

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a. Attention to police beatings

While high-profile cases, many police killings and serious police crimes appear to be investigated and punished quite efficiently by the IG, he has not punished many cases of police beatings. The IG appears particularly concerned by police criminality at this time and appears to be focusing resources on those issues.(40) However, we are concerned that neglecting police beatings on the grounds that they are relatively less important sends a message of tolerance for abuse which may be contributing to its stubborn persistence in the force today. In at least one case, the failure to investigate and take action against an abusive officer had deadly consequences:

On October 2, 1997, in Grand Goave, as people departed a football match, police pushed people in the crowd and hit them with truncheons. Reportedly, the police then left the area, returning a little later in a vehicle. Two or three uniformed police were in the car with an HNP agent named Jude Merzi who was wearing civilian clothes. While in the vehicle, Merzi started to quarrel with a woman in the crowd, who alleged that he had hit her earlier. A bystander then threw a rock at the car, whereupon Merzi opened fire from the vehicle. Witnesses say he aimed at the woman he was fighting with but shot and killed a bystander named Jean Denis. Two other uniformed HNP agents also started to shoot from the car and they and Merzi wounded four people,(41) including the HNP commissaire from the neighboring town of Petit Goave who was attending the football match.

Jude Merzi and his brother, who is also an HNP agent, had previously been involved in a series of excesses including beatings in Jacmel. HNP authorities transferred Jude and his brother to Port-au-Prince, where the brother later shot a man in a personal dispute. Jude Merzi was present at that incident. The brother remained in Port-au-Prince, suspended from duty. Jude Merzi was transferred to Grand Goave, where he shot and killed Jean Denis in the incident described above shortly after his arrival.(42)

Avoiding the beatings issue is also likely to exacerbate arrogant attitudes already displayed by many police agents and officers and reinforce a belief held both by the HNP and more broadly among many Haitians that gang members and criminals deserve what they get. 

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b. Reporting on police abuse

During 1996, the inspector general had issued a series of press releases with detailed information about cases of abuse and his actions in response. This was a revolutionary practice in Haiti where the army and police literally got away with murder for decades. Some press releases included the names of the police agent or officer under investigation or sanctioned, the nature, time and place of the abuse, and the status of the investigation or nature of sanction. The last time the HNP issued such detailed information was October 1996. Since then, information has been restricted to statistical breakdowns of the inspector general's activities, such as that presented in the box on page 8. We protested to the IG that this change in behavior was a serious error. Statistics alone provide no means for independent verification of the inspector general's activities -- whether the cases are in fact being investigated, which types of crime are being investigated, the quality of the investigation, and the proportionality of the punishment.

It is clear that the detailed press releases provoked angry reactions within the HNP. Police agents accuse the IG of making unfair or ungrounded decisions and have made threats against the IG staff.(43) Many police we interviewed were particularly opposed to the naming of police personnel, asserting that this could pose a danger to them. Both Denizé and Eucher Joseph favored naming HNP personnel only if and when they were fired for a transgression.(44) There is no evidence to date of any retaliations based on making this information public including the names of nearly 50 HNP under investigation during 1996. While 37 HNP have been killed over the past two-and-a-half years, none of these killings has followed or been related to the press releases. Rather, some cases appear to be revenge killings of police who had arrested drug traffickers and gang members.

However, the inspector general told us that he is now instituting a program of monthly public reports detailing the police cases under review in his office in response to a directive from the Superior Council of the National Police.(45) The reports will describe the allegations, the nature of the crime or human rights abuse alleged, the name and rank of the police officer, and the status of the investigation or prosecution. Apparently, the first report is to be issued for December 1997.(46) We view this kind of detailed reporting as an essential indicator of the HNP's commitment to reducing incidents of human rights abuse on the force. 

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c. Institutional audits

In June 1996, Director General Denizé updated the HNP's development plan. The update identifies the primary threats to the HNP as politicization and corruption. Denizé's response to these concerns is to prioritize "administrative audits," the other half of the IG's mandate. Both Eucher Joseph and Denizé view these audits as important to the management of the HNP and as a way to generate the accountability, responsibility and control on the local level needed to further reduce ongoing human rights abuses. These audits, begun in November 1997, are to evaluate the operations of the police stations (commissariats) with on-site inspections to see if all police codes, rules and regulations are complied with, and if all daily, weekly and monthly reporting registers are filled out properly. Visits made to several stations have resulted in sanctions.(47)

Denizé argues that once audits are conducted, "we would have fewer cases treated after the fact. If we have inspections, it will be a disincentive [to abuse]."(48) The audits are an essential oversight tool to improve leadership and internal supervision. Given that there appears to be a more or less consistent level of human rights abuse despite the inspector general's investigations and punishment of criminal police, further means must be sought to stem abuse and improve the quality of policing. Strengthening police leadership is a core component of such an effort. Improved leadership should help to reduce the level of ongoing abuse and deal with lesser disciplinary issues at the local level, somewhat reducing the burden on the overwhelmed inspector general.

We raised a concern with both Eucher Joseph and Denize about the impact of the new auditing work of the IG on investigations of human rights abuses and criminal behavior. Both insisted that there would be no shift of resources from one function to the other. Eucher said that he was already hiring new staff for the auditing work and that he was completely confident that his budget requests for expanded operations in this area would be met.(49)

While reassured by the IG's commitment to both functions of his office, we do reiterate our concern that his office focus to a greater extent on police abuse. Administrative audits are clearly needed to improve supervision and strengthen local and regional police commanders' management and control of police resources. However, we are concerned that the focus on investigation of human rights violations not waver as the result of a budgetary "trade-off" between the two functions.

Some international donors argue that the inspector general should not have this dual function but that one bureau should conduct internal investigations and another carry out audits. Such a change would require changes in laws and regulations governing the police, which could not be achieved in the foreseeable future given Haiti's parliamentary stalemate. In order to avoid any trade-off between rights issues and increased supervision and oversight through the audits, the CSPN should work with international donors to achieve a significant increase in the staff and resources of the IG, creating two separate functions within his office, one for investigations and the other for audits. 

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d. Lack of external complaint mechanisms

Finally, there has been no improvement in the public's accessibility to the inspector general. The IG's Port-au-Prince office is in a remote residential area that is not served by public transport. With no regional IG offices, the only decentralized channel for complaints of police abuse are through local or regional HNP stations (where complainants may fear police reprisals). While MICIVIH remains in Haiti, it provides an independent channel for complaints, but neither the Justice Ministry nor HNP authorities mentioned any effort to decentralize the inspector general's office before MICIVIH leaves.

Currently, the majority of complaints of police abuse are brought through the ranks of the HNP itself.(50) Other sources of information include MICIVIH (51) and the daily synthesis provided to senior HNP leaders and Haitian government officials by CivPol. HNP authorities commented that MICIVIH continued to be a valuable informational resource. Following the final departure of international human rights and police monitors, the lack of external complaints mechanisms raises serious concerns about the potential for a decline in allegations of police abuse received by the IG, particularly in the not-unlikely event that individual police close ranks and cease to monitor their colleagues.

One potential external channel for complaints of police abuse mentioned in our last report is the Office of the Protector of Citizens (OPC) which was formally inaugurated on November 4, 1997. Headed by Louis Roy, known for his role in drafting the 1987 Constitution of Haiti, the office currently has a staff of four and one consultant.(52) The Constitution mandates the OPC to investigate any case of wrongdoing by state representatives. Roy and his staff are currently defining their priorities. While the OPC should be a central component of a government-wide effort to create and consolidate human rights guarantees, it has received little support from the Haitian government. Roy wishes to establish departmental offices as envisioned in the OPC's statute, but has neither the funds, the resources, nor the administrative structure to do so. At this time, there is no other Haitian governmental or non-governmental body able to monitor the police throughout the country. 


39. Eucher Joseph was previously inspector general from May 1995 until November 1995 when the Minister of Justice fired him for investigating illegal police searches and disarmament efforts. See "The Human Rights Record of the Haitian National Police," p. 19.

40. Eucher Joseph informed us that is currently conducting a major investigations of police involved with gangs. Interview, October 15, 1997.

41. The other wounded were Marjorie [surname unknown], Stevenson Confidant, Louis Leveye and Maxeau Glodain. Interviews with MICIVIH observers in Port-au-Prince, October 15, 1997, and interviews in Grand Goave with Alain Zehir of Comme il Faut, the justice of the peace, Stevenson Confidant, Marjorie, and two HNP agents, October 17, 1997.

42. Ibid. The IG conducted an investigation the following day. Jude Merzi is currently in jail.

43. WOLA/NCHR interviewed a number of HNP agents who stated that the IG was biased in his decisions. CivPol Lt. Lavagne stated that he had seen no evidence to this effect. Interview with Lt. Pierre Lavagne, head of the CivPol team assigned to the inspector general's office, Port-au-Prince, October 20, 1997. Eucher Joseph says he has never received direct political threats but he notes that "in the absence of a system of justice in which all Haitian institutions hold abusive police accountable, I am seen as the 'ogre'."

44. Eucher Joseph stated that: "The state should put up a firewall to ensure that good practice continues though political changes. If you don't tell people that a cop has been fired, he can pretend that he is still on the payroll and try to extort people. You must give a cop's name to do that." Interview, October 15, 1997.

45. Article 10, CSPN directive of September 25, 1997. Document on file at WOLA.

46. Eucher Joseph interview, December 15, 1997.

47. Ibid.

48. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.

49. Eucher Joseph interview, December 15, 1997.

50. Lavagne interview, October 20, 1997.

51. In 1997, MICIVIH brought about 50 of 628 inquiries opened by the inspector general. Lavagne interview, October 20, 1997.

52. The OPC could benefit from further technical and financial assistance, particularly technical assistance from other developing nations which confront similar challenges. MICIVIH conducted a seminar for Mr. Roy and his staff at which the HNP inspector general gave a presentation, as well as the Doyen de Tribunal, the Deputy Director of APENA (the prison administration) and MICIVIH's regional offices. The office is also twinned with and received training from the Quebec ombudsman's office. The OPC's funding is modest and depends on the national budget, which parliament has never approved without extended delays.

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CAN HAITI'S POLICE REFORMS BE SUSTAINED?
  Executive Summary
  1. Police Progress in 1997
  2. Continuing Human Rights Leadership and Management Problems
  3. Conclusion
  4. Recommendations

I - Introduction: The Haitian National Police

  1. Organization of and international support for the new police force
  2. Findings of the January 1997 report

II - Police Progress In 1997

III - Continuing Human Rights Problems

  1. Excessive use of force
  2. HNP disregard of constitutional due process protections
  3. Police arrogance: the "chief" mentality
  4. Police involvement in crime and corruption
  5. Police politicization
  6. Police shortage

IV - HNP Institutional Weakness

  1. Leadership problems and lack of professionalism
  2. Specialized units
  3. Administration and equipment

V - The Inspector General

  1. Attention to police beatings
  2. Reporting on police abuse
  3. Institutional audits
  4. Lack of external complaint mechanisms

VI - Community-Police Relations

VII - The Judicial System and  Impunity for Police Killings

VIII - Conclusions And Recommendations

Acknowledgements

 

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