Friday, Me Jean Roudy, Director General of the Ministry of Justice, Jean-Baptiste St-Cyr Director General of the National Identification Office (ONI) accompanied by several experts, held an important working meeting with the officers of civil Registry and the clerks of the courts of Port-au-Prince and Croix-des-Bouquets to sensitize them on the need to always deliver the acts of civil status, in strict compliance with the law.

Jean-Baptiste St-Cyr insisted on the role of Civil State officers in the identification of citizens. He builds on a close relationship between the authorities of Civil Registry and those in charge of national identification. Although he recognizes that the problem of false documents, arises around the world, he invites the officers to be vigilant to avoid being misled by citizens dishonest, saying "You work upstream and ONI is downstream. It is upstream that must be prevented forgery."

For his part, Me Jean Roudy asked the officers to always keep a close relationship with clerks of the courts of first instance, especially to avoid issuing for example divorce proceedings on the basis of false judgments. He stressed that in the current state of legislation, it was hard to modernize the civil state sector by introducing the mass use of IT, explaining "The law still speaks of birth registry, of register closure, etc... We need legislation to introduce the scanned data."

In addition to the interventions of the two Directors General, the officers have had a full day of training and awareness with experts such as : Me Aunondieu Geste, Me Elie Méus and Me Jean Chenier Gourdet, who also took the opportunity to sensitize them on the implementation of the Decree of 16 January 2014, which allows people without birth certificates, to make a late declaration of birth in front of a Civil Status Officer, without the need for any such judgment of Tribunal of First Instance (TPI) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11852-haiti-justice-late-registration-of-birth-easy-and-free.html

HL/ HaitiLibre