By Tilly Barrie
The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) has released two reports and two discussion papers on the country's governance and justice sectors.
OSIWA Country Officer, Joe Pemagbi said “the reports are an indication of a partnership built on common values for the promotion of open societies where the rule of law, access to information and accountability and transparency are the norm and not the exception”.
He explained they took a critical look at, among others, the way oversight institutions function and are funded; the process of appointment to high public positions; as well as analyse the impact of budget development on political participation and effective delivery of public services.
Pemagbi spoke about the support his organisation had been providing in different areas in the country towards strengthening governance institutions and civil society.
Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Franklyn Bai Kargbo, who launched the reports said “successive governments have committed to promote human rights and humanitarian law”. He said the report launch demonstrated the hard work of OSIWA in Sierra Leone and Africa as a whole. He implored all to read the report and apply it in various intervention areas.
Kargbo highlighted some strides his government had made since the research for the reports was conducted including the promulgation of the Local Court Act, Legal Aid Act, Independent Police Complaint Board and the Right to Access Information. He said the country had taken steps to comply with international organisations for humanitarian law.
The Minister said that for the first time Sierra Leone would be presenting a report to the African Charter and that the CEDAW report on gender strides in the country that was presented by the country in Geneva was well received. He said government remained fully committed to fund the Constitutional Review process and they would accept whatever decision the committee came up with and challenged anyone involved in civil rights and state governance to work collaboratively with government something he said would avoid future conflict in the country.
The head of the National Electoral Commission, Christiana Thorpe urged civil society to be a part of the upcoming census and the constitutional review processes.
She said "the issues they are looking at are from the back but it will pave the way forward for the country”.
Figures collected from the census, she went on, would be used for boundary delimitation so civil society should educate the populace about the importance of census so that people wouldn’t be moving around.
Thorpe also called on civil society groups to pressure government to fund the census and constitutional review process so that the date for the elections would not be moved. She said “Sierra Leone is really moving forward in the democratic process and giving it a best shot when talking about democracy Sierra Leone should be not lower than third position”.
She announced as tentative dates that 2015 would be for village head elections, 2016 local council, 2017/2018 general elections.
Governance consultant Emmanuel Gaima and Human Rights Commissioner Jamesina King presented the key recommendations on the two reports which cover three years of research from 2011 to 2013 commissioned by OSIWA and the African Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMap).
(C) Politico 04/03/14
