ISC Director Rosny Desroches and RTVC Host Jean Monard Metellus
AUDIO
January 21, 2015: Civil society open letter read by Host Journalist Jean Monard Metellus.
January 26, 2015: ISC Director Rosny Desroches interviewed by Marie Lucie Bonhomme Opont.
There is a grand debate taking place in Haiti and it regards a position I took three months ago. The issue of this debate is about the correct procedure following the fall of the Chamber of Deputies and reduction of a second third of the Senate, which happen on January 12, 2015. What I am learning from this debate is that there is a general misunderstanding of not how a democracy works but what a democracy is.
My position is that the 10 (possibly 11) remaining Senators of the Republic are the only ones with the mandate of the Haitian people to exercise legislative power and this power cannot be broken or given to another power. Therefore, rather than the Chief Executive exercise legislative power by “ruling by decree”, violating the Constitution and fully entering into totalitarianism, it is the remaining senators only who were voted to have this power and can exercise this power. Jean Monard Metellus is a long time and trusted journalist but he disagrees with me. He is the host of the weekday talk show Intersection on Radio Television Caraibes and moderator of Ranmase, a Saturday morning roundtable featuring people in the news. I never miss a broadcast.
Metellus is an institution in Haiti, a serious political power player. He gives analyses Monday through Friday at 12:30PM and they are brilliant discourses, profound and almost all the time I am in agreement with them or come to an agreement with them during the broadcast. But Metellus disagrees with my position on post-January 12, 2015 and there Metellus is wrong.
Nearly every civil society organization in Haiti, including Pierre Esperance of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), signed an open letter to Michel Martelly that was disseminated via the press. In this letter, the organizations called on Martelly to recognize the right of legislative power of the remaining 10 Senators.
Jean Monard Metellus does something unique during his shows that I love. He reads official press releases in their entirety to his audience to things in context. It’s tedious but he does it, meticulously and it has had a groundbreaking cultural impact in Haiti. But when Metellus read the letter, principally signed by the Civil Society Initiative’s (ISC) Rosny Desroches, regarding the maintenance of legislative power in the Senate, I must say, Metellus lost all manners of decorum that I had become accustomed to from listening to his programs, religiously, for the past year and a half. Metellus completely dismissed the thought of a Parliament of 10, didn’t even want to discuss it, and articulated it “I don’t even want to get into this debate.” I was shocked a bit. I had known Jean Monard to be a man of prolonged and profound reflection before articulating a clear and coherent determination.
The journalist, Metellus, argues that because Parliament should have 129 members, actions can’t be taken when it has only 10 existing members but Metellus seems to forget that his alternative is that 1 person, not elected to exercise legislative power, exercises legislative power. That is what he supports.
Oh, it was not Jean Monard Metellus’ best hour. He slumped into state of defeatism behind the almighty microphone. He said “if we’re going to be f***ed, we need to be f***ed all the way.” (profanity was not used but was interpreted) He finds the existence of the Legislature far too tedious, far too meticulous of work and the civil society organizations are not helping him.
Rosny Desroches and Edouard Paultre have spoken about this corrective measure in ways that show they lack a certain depth of understanding about a democracy. They are supporting the right idea, there they are correct, there must be a separation of powers, an existence of powers. But the said civil society leaders are outlining steps in which the 10-member Senate has to request the power from the President, an accord must be signed, and this parliament will be limited in its functions. Total garbage that will cause more problems.
The remaining Senators who make up of what remains of Parliament don’t need to ask anyone for the power invested in them by the People of Haiti. They just need to take the power they have. An accord is not needed and was never needed since the beginning of this crisis. The only accord that exists is the Constitution of Haiti and that’s the accord the Haitian people have. All else, is among friends, groups, and interests not Haitian.
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