Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
on political prisoners, or committed political assassinations
(Article 291). The constitution abolishes the death penalty and
focuses on the protection of civil rights through detailed
restrictions on the arrest and detainment of citizens. It calls for
the establishment of a career civil service based on merit and
for job security, and it recognizes both Creole and French as
official languages.
The constitution established a complex system of government
based upon three major independent branches of government:
legislative, executive, and judicial. Legislative powers
are vested in two houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate. Deputies and senators are elected by direct suffrage.
Eighty-three deputies are elected to represent electoral districts,
and twenty-seven senators represent Haiti's nine geographic
departments. In the executive branch, the president of
the republic serves as head of state. A prime minister, chosen
by the president from the majority party in the legislature,
heads the government. Other components of the executive
branch include cabinet ministers and secretaries of state. The
judiciary consists of a Supreme Court (the Court of Cassation),
courts of appeal, and other lower courts. The president
appoints judges on the basis of nominations made by various
elected bodies, including departmental and communal assemblies.
The constitution also provides for several special institutions
and autonomous governmental offices that include the Permanent
Electoral Council (Conseil Electoral Permanent), the
Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, the
Conciliation Commission (a body responsible for settling disputes
between the executive and legislative branches and
between the two houses of the legislature), the Office of Citizen
Protection (an ombudsman organization established to
protect citizens against abuse by the government) , the University
of Haiti, the Haitian Academy (responsible for standardizing
the Creole language), and the National Institute of
Agrarian Reform. The constitution contains a number of provisions
intended to guide the country during transitions between
elected governments. These provisions include granting the
Permanent Electoral Council sufficient autonomy to hold local
and national elections, free of outside interference.
The application of constitutional provisions has occasionally
been the focus of vigorous political debate, both within the
National Assembly and between the legislative and executive
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