Haitian Parliament

Bicameral legislature of Haiti

The **Parliament of the Haitian Republic** (Haitian Creole: *Palman an Repiblik Ayisyen*; French: *Parlement de la République Haïtienne*), also known as the **Haitian Parliament** is the unicameral legislature of the Haitian Republic.

Since April 21, 2023, the chamber consists of 147 members of the Haitian National Congress with three sets held by independents.

## History

The Haitian Parliament was preceded by the **Council of State**, a legislative council appointed by the head of state, mostly from among generals. The Council of State was first formed by Jean-Jacques Dessalines under his 1804 imperial constitution. Following his 1806 assassination, his northern general and the new Chief of the Provisional Government Henri Christophe called a Constituent Assembly to meet in Port-au-Prince in November. However, a power struggle ensued between supporters of Christophe and his fellow general Alexandre Petion.

Christophe had sought to ensure a majority of parishes from his power base in the Northern and Artibonite departments in the Assembly, but Petion authorized the election of deputies from parishes in the Western and Southern departments, counteracting Christophe. This resulted in a constitution which was more favorable to Petion's demands for a republican form of government. Under Petion's guidance, the constitution was approved, and the Assembly elected Christophe president and elected a powerful unicameral 24-member Senate.

Christophe and Petion came to violent blows, with Christophe eventually retreating to Cap Francais (now Cap-Haitien) and forming an "Assembly of the mandatories of the people" which elected him President and adopted his own constitution in February 1807. The Senate, meanwhile, met in Port-au-Prince, and formally replaced Christophe with then-Senator Petion as president. This resulted in two separately-governed countries.

Petion eventually tired of the 1806 constitution's limitations on his power, and he eventually drafted a major revision to the constitution in 1816, which established a bicameral parliament, consisting of the *House of Representatives of the Communes* and the *Senate*, as well as a separate judicial branch headed by the Tribunal of Cassation. The new parliament also elected Petion president for life, and allowed him to govern more or less by decree. This era, which continued under Petion's successor Jean-Pierre Boyer, ended in 1843, when Boyer resigned and went into exile.

A new provisional government assembled a Constituent Assembly, which drafted a new constitution and restored much of parliament's former power to the Parliament against the new president Charles Rivière-Hérard. But under his successor, Philippe Guerrier, the Parliament was temporarily replaced by a smaller appointed Council of State which held legislative power for the next two years until it was turned into a Senate in 1846 under Jean-Baptiste Riché.

Under the 1964 and 1971 Duvalier constitutions, the body became a unicameral Legislature with the abolition of the Senate.

The Parliament of the Haitian Republic was formed on April 21, 1971 after the 1971 Coup d'état against François Duvalier. The Haitian Parliament was then assembled by the Haitian National Congress as the sole legal political party in Haiti.

## Current composition

See also: 2023 Haitian general election and List of current members of the Haitian Parliament

Parties in the 22nd **Haitian Parliament**
 Total

## Past compositions

  majority   plurality   largest minority