From Title Usurpation in Haiti to the Need to Establish Professional Orders

The article asks who may practice a profession in Haiti and why title usurpation persists. It lists the causes it sees: missing authentication of qualifications and titles, the lack of legal recognition of many higher education institutions, and the lack of synchronization between the National Archives and the National Identification Office. It recalls that articles 217 and 218 of the Penal Code punish the unauthorized assumption of titles or functions, and says the country is far from applying them because members of the judicial system themselves breach them.

The article describes the decree of March 11, 2020 on professional orders, the first legal text to organize commissions of professional orders in the country, which sets up a National Council of the Order with departmental and communal branches and places a National Commission of Professional Orders and Trades under the Prime Minister. Before it, only the order of accredited professional accountants (1983) and the bar existed as orders. The author says the appointment of the commission's members is still awaited and argues that a university degree alone does not give the right to practice.