Ertha Pascal-Trouillot

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Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, 1990

Ertha Pascal-Trouillot (born August 13, 1943 in Pétionville ) is a Haitian lawyer and politician. In 1990 she became the first woman to chair both the Supreme Court and the office of Head of State of Haiti .

biography

Origin, studies and professional career

Ertha Pascal was the ninth of ten children of steel worker Thimocles Pascal and his wife Louise Pascal-Dumornay. After the early death of her father, her mother had to support her and her nine siblings as a seamstress and embroiderer . At the age of ten she continued her school education at the Lycée François Duvalier in Pétionville , where she received the support of her future husband, the twenty-one-year-old teacher and lawyer Ernst Trouillot.

Through her husband, she was able to complete a law degree after completing school , which she did in July 1971 at the École de Droit des Gonaïves in Port-au-Prince with a thesis on the subject of “Statut Juridique De L'Haitienne Dans La Legalization Sociale “ Concluded. In October 1971 she was admitted to the bar. In 1980 she was appointed the first female judge to the civil tribunal ( Tribunal Civil ) of Port-au-Prince, after she had previously been a member of a commission for the revision of civil law as legal advisor of the Port-au-Prince Bar Association. In 1985 she was appointed first female judge at the Court of Appeal ( Cour d'Appel ) before she became the first woman to be a member of the Supreme Court ( Cour suprême or Cour de Cassation ) in 1986 . Two years later, in 1990, she became President of the Supreme Court.

For her services to the French language , she was honored by the Alliance française and accepted as a member of the Association des Écrivains de Langue Française . She is also a member of the American Bar Association .

Acting President from 1990 to 1991

After Lieutenant General Prosper Avril's military government was overthrown by Lieutenant General Hérard Abraham on March 10, 1990, she was appointed the first and so far only incumbent President of Haiti three days later, after Abraham himself resigned from the office of president. When she took office, she promised the introduction of democracy .

On January 7, 1991 she was kidnapped after a coup by Roger Lafontant , the personal physician and gray eminence of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier , who was overthrown in 1986 , and forced to announce Lafontant as her successor in a televised address. However, Lafontant was forced to flee Haiti after unrest broke out.

After the presidential elections of December 16, 1990, she handed over the office of President on February 7, 1991 to the election winner Jean-Bertrand Aristide . The latter had her arrested for alleged complicity in the Lafontant coup on January 7, 1991. However, she was released one day after the intervention of the US government and then went into exile in the USA , from which she did not return until more than a year later.

After her return, she withdrew from politics and instead, as before her presidential office, worked primarily as an author of specialist books, such as the Biographical Dictionary of Haiti.

Works

  • Code de lois usuelles , Port-au-Prince, 1978
  • Rétrospectives ... horizons , Port-au-Prince, 1980
  • Au grand Boulevard de la Liberté: Souvenir d'un périple privilégie aux États-Unis , Port-au-Prince, 1981
  • Analysis of De La Légalisation Revisant Le Statut De La Femme Mariée: Le Decret du 8 Octobre 1982 et le Code Civil , Port-au-Prince 1982
  • Etre femme en Haiti hier et aujourd'hui: Le regard des constitutions, des lois et de la societé (Port-au-Prince, 2002)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Joseph B. Treaster: Civilian Sworn In as Haiti's president . In: The New York Times . March 14, 1990, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed April 11, 2020]).
  2. Michael S. Serrill: Haiti: General Without an Army . In: Time . January 21, 1991, ISSN  0040-781X ( time.com [accessed April 11, 2020]).
  3. ^ Haiti: A Shock to the System. In: Time . April 15, 1991, accessed on March 13, 2020 (English): “But last week former Supreme Court judge and interim President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot was arrested and charged with complicity in a foiled coup against her own 10-month-old government in January. "
predecessor Office successor
Hérard Abraham Acting President of Haiti
March 13, 1990–7. February 1991
Jean-Bertrand Aristide