Introduction
We are a collective of American legal professionals who came together with the shared goal of professionally researching the Cuban legal system. Our group brought together participants from diverse professional backgrounds, including practicing attorneys, law school administrators and professors, law students, legal workers, and paralegals. This breadth of perspectives shaped both our approach and analysis, with the intention of providing American legal audiences with an accessible overview of the Cuban legal system.
The purpose of our research was twofold: to research the Cuban legal system as it functions internally, and to examine Cuba’s position under international law. Within this broader scope, this group’s specific focus was on the role of popular consultation in both the Cuban Penal Code and the penal process. We were particularly interested in how forms of popular participation manifest not only in legislative drafting but also in the day-to-day administration of justice. Individuals engaged in preliminary research for this project, including extensive study of Cuba’s history, its post-revolutionary political development, its law, and its legal institutions. While in Cuba recently, we met with Cuban civil society members and legal professionals, including popular assembly representatives, attorneys, judges, professors, and law students. These exchanges offered invaluable insight into how the Cuban legal system operates in practice and how legal professionals within Cuba understand the function of law in a socialist society.
At the same time, we as researchers recognize the limitations of our study.
Our on-the-ground research period was relatively short, and our interactions were primarily with legal professionals rather than everyday, working people. As such, our research is limited and some of our findings may reflect the perspectives of professionals more than those of ordinary Cubans who experience the legal system as defendants, litigants, or imprisoned community members. We also left with lingering questions that could not be fully explored within the timeframe of our visits. We left with the understanding that the ability to travel to Cuba, and to allocate the time to travel to Cuba, is inherently limited, and thus poses an ongoing challenging variable to conducting research.
Despite these limitations, our hope is that this report contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Cuba’s legal system for legal audiences. By highlighting mechanisms of popular consultation within the penal code and penal process, we aim to provide research into how Cuba conceptualizes the law not merely as a technical apparatus but as a site of citizen participation and social accountability.
This work is divided into five papers. Since the focus was penal law, each paper was researched and drafted by a group with at least one criminal law practitioner.
