Supreme Court of Haiti

The Supreme Court of Haiti, known in French as the Cour de Cassation and in Haitian Creole as Lakou kasasyon an Ayiti, is the highest court of the Haitian legal system. It sits in Port-au-Prince, where its Palais de Justice was heavily damaged by the 2010 earthquake. The court was first formed in 1817 under the 1816 constitution of Petion as a body of a grand judge, a dean, six judges and a government commissioner appointed for life, and before that the Senate performed judicial functions from 1806 to 1817. Since a law of 1954 it has had twelve judges, including a president and vice-president, plus a government commissioner and three substitutes. Under the present constitution justices serve ten-year terms and are appointed by the president from lists of three names per seat proposed by the senate. Its role includes reviewing whether statutes and executive acts conform to the constitution, and its justices have often been replaced when governments change.