Chronological Index of Haitian Legislation (1804-2000)

A chronological index of Haitian legislation from 1804 to 2000, compiled by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security with UNDP support and published in Port-au-Prince in September 2001. It carries an ISBN and states plainly on its rights page that it is a research essay that does not claim to be exhaustive, which is the right way to read it.

Its organizing principle is branch of law rather than date within a single sequence. It opens with the Act of Independence, then public international law divided into universal instruments, regional instruments and bilateral agreements, then Haitian public law with constitutional, electoral and administrative law, the last subdivided into central public administration, organic laws, administrative districts and territorial collectivities, administrative property law, public hygiene legislation and administrative police. Education and culture law, tax law, customs law and fundamental rights follow, and later chapters cover civil, commercial and penal law with a final miscellaneous chapter taking in judicial institutions, the liberal professions, industry and investment, general regulations, maritime law and aviation law.

What makes it useful two decades on is the citation attached to each entry: the instrument, its date, and the number and date of the Moniteur issue in which it appeared. That is the reference chain a researcher needs to find the text itself, and it is exactly what is missing from most Haitian legal sources. The entries run from nineteenth-century acts through mid-century mining and commercial agreements to accords with the United States, France, Japan, Spain, Germany and Belgium.