August 28, 2020- August 28, 2021. It’s already been a year since the former president of the Port-au-Prince Bar Association was assassinated in front of his home, a pèlerin, in the evening. To mark this first year, the Port-au-Prince Bar Association has launched a series of commemorative activities to pay tribute to the bâtonnier’s memory. The program included a conference-debate and an exhibition of books and articles.
Legal practitioners, career lawyers and others were on hand to attend the series of activities. Immediately after the exhibition, it was the turn of the conference-debate.
In a resounding voice, Marie Suzy Legros, the current Bâtonnière, opened the debate by evoking all the themes that Me Dorval nurtured during his lifetime. From “change of political regime” to “change of constitution” to “theories of impossible formalities”. She ended her speech by expressing the hope that justice would find and punish those responsible for this heinous act.
Professor Léon Saint-Louis, Chairman of the Bar Association’s Scientific Committee, then began by saying that from the time he returned to the country in 1994 until his death in 2020, the former President of the Bar had contributed unceasingly to the advancement of the law in this country. He also recalled that, thanks to Dr. Dorval, the law has taken off in the country thanks to his influence.
Professor Dorval was a high-ranking intellectual who completed his undergraduate studies in Haiti at the Port-au-Prince Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Humanities. He went on to complete his master’s and doctoral studies in France, where he was awarded a doctorate in public law after winning a competition organized by the French Embassy in Haiti as part of an agreement between the Faculty of Law and Economics (FDSE) and the University of Aix Marseille.
In the opinion of some, the former bâtonnier never belonged to a political party. He was always saying liberating things, like this one, which he often uttered under Jovenel Moïse, “The country is neither administered nor directed”.
A sentence that would have cost him his life. A few days after having quoted him on a radio station in the capital, on the evening of August 28, 2020, he was cowardly attacked and shot dead in his private residence in Pèlerin, not far from that of the former President of the Republic, Mr. Jovenel Moïse.
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