Constitution

Haiti 1987 Constitution (reviewed 2012)

Preamble

The Haitian people proclaim this Constitution:

To guarantee their inalienable and imprescriptible rights to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness; in accordance with their Act of Independence of 1804 and with the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1948.

To constitute a Haitian nation, socially just, economically free, and politically independent.

To establish a State stable and strong, capable of protecting the values, the traditions, the sovereignty, the independence and the national vision.

To implant democracy which implies ideological pluralism and political alternation and to affirm the inviolable rights of the Haitian People.

To fortify the national unity, eliminating all discrimination between the populations, of the towns and of the countryside, by the acceptance of the community of languages and of culture and by the recognition of the right to progress, to information, to education, to health, to work and to leisure for all citizens [masculine] and citizens [feminine].

To assure the separation, and the harmonious division of the powers of the State to the service of the fundamental interests and priorities of the Nation.

To establish a governmental regime based on the fundamental liberties and the respect for human rights, the social peace, economic equity, the equity of gender, the concerted action and the participation of all the population in the grand decisions engaging the national life, by an effective decentralization.

To assure to women a representation in the instances of power and of decision which must conform to the equality of the sexes and to equity of gender.