16175: McCalla: RE: 16169: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-OPPOSITION LEADER HELD WITHOUT CHARGES (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jocelyn McCalla <makala99@yahoo.com>

It's not true that "under Haitian law, people can be detained for months
without being charged," as the Miami Herald claims. Unless the present
government has changed the rules and the laws, the last time I checked,
under Haitian laws, people arrested must be charged and indicted within 48
hours of the arrest, otherwise the arrest is declared illegal and the
detainee must be released.

Haitian government practice -- from time immemorial to the present -- has
been to ignore the laws of the land, and the 48-hour rule in particular.
Consequently practice, not laws, has led to arbitrary and indefinite
detention. That does not make such politically-backward customs legal.
Recent governments have innovated on the practice: even when the courts step
in to order the release of a detainee, having exonerated the detainee after
investigation, government prosecutors have refused to order the release
under other arbitrary and capricious grounds, which are nonetheless
completely illegal.

Jocelyn McCalla