By Dr Ishmail Conte
Sierra Leone Bar Association’s letter to the Inspector General of Police dated 20 May 2020 was one that I read with much disdain and disappointment.
The letter has lent credence to one of the points I raised in my last article when I responded to their press release on the Pademba Road prison incident of the 29 April, hence my disappointment lies.
I want to make it crystal clear that I have a lot of sympathy for Ade Macauley and the many other Sierra Leoneans whose basic constitutional human rights including the rights to life and free speech, which have been trampled upon for so long without recourse to justice.
To put things into context (and I restrict myself to the recent past), I begin by quoting Amnesty International’s report on Sierra Leone by Sabrina Mahtani of 16 August 2018, on an incident that happened in 2016 in Kabala. It reads:
The people of Kabala are not alone. Across Sierra Leone, there are survivors of police brutality who are still waiting for justice or compensation. Abdulai, a university student, was shot during a student protest in the southern city of Bo last year. He lives with a bullet in his heart and needs medical treatment abroad but cannot afford it. He has not received any compensation and no police officer has been disciplined or investigated, let alone brought to justice in connection with his shooting despite recommendations made by the IPCB.
In Bo, in another report by Peace in Sight, titled “Pulling the Trigger; Police Brutality in Sierra Leone”, of 6 April 2017. It reads: “The killing of two people at a protest last year has launched a debate about the tactics of the police in Sierra Leone.”
I will cite yet another incident report by AllAfrica online publication dated 20 June 2012, which reads:
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has strongly demanded that government immediately disarm all police officers armed with weapons "because they are killing people indiscriminately" .The party's official spokesperson, Chernor Alpha Bah, told Concord Times in a telephone interview yesterday that their call came as a result of the frequent killing of innocent civilians in the country by police officers.
It would be refreshing to refer to SLBA’s public statement on the Pademba Road incident of 29 April. Their tone has now changed. All of a sudden they are now up in arms, trumpeting how they are firm believers of the rule of law, all because one of their own is now in the mix.
Can the SLBA be taken seriously?
Was it not only a few weeks ago when the reasons given for sending away one of the country’s Supreme Court Justices on leave, was because of his alleged failure to make judgements on cases that go as far back as 8-9 years ago?
My instinct tells me there are dozens of cases which have not been decided upon by other judges in all of our courts = high courts, court of appeal and Supreme Court of our country. It is little wonder our jails are full of people, up and down our country, who have spent years in prisons, who are yet to have their days in court. I hate to contemplate that some may never have that opportunity.
Well SLBA, if the organisation does actually believe in the rule of law, those are some of the issues they should have been shouting about from the rooftops.
Let me cite just a few examples of what some lawyers have done in a few countries, whilst fighting to uphold the rule of law.
In Pakistan the reputation of lawyers was made in 2007, when they rose up to resist President Musharraf’s sacking and arrest of Chief Justice Chaudhry, and to strike when Musharraf suspended the constitution.
In 2009, in Russia, the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was detained for blowing the whistle on alleged corruption among Russian officials and police. He later died in custody after a year without trial. His death led to the United States passing the US Magnitsky Act in December 2012 which enabled the US to withhold visas and freeze assets of Russian officials allegedly involved in human rights violations.
As the American, John T Berry, the 2001 recipient of the ABA’s Michael Franck Award, the highest bestowed nationally by the association for achievement in the field of lawyer ethics, professionalism, and conduct, as part of U S Department of Justice team visit to Nigeria in 2002, stated this about the Nigerian Bar Association:
In Nigeria I saw some of the worst of human conditions and some of the best. The best was exemplified by lawyers, who under the toughest of circumstances are fighting to create a system of justice that decides disputes not by guns or planes crashed into buildings, but by the rule of law.
One of the International Bar Association’s principles states: “A lawyer shall at all times maintain the highest standards of honesty, integrity and fairness”.
By remaining silent on the causes in which members of the legal profession are not victims, can SLBA as an organisation be said to have integrity? This should be read within the meaning of the word, “being whole and undivided”, on matters resting on the rule of law, which concerns every Sierra Leonean but not just members of the legal profession or Bar Association.
I feel deeply sorry for the countless number of Sierra Leoneans whose right to life has been eroded, such as the lives lost in Kabala and Bo. Not forgetting those Sierra Leoneans who have been awaiting their judgments spanning 8-9 years back.
Ady Macauley may now be a free man at home with his family, but there are many Sierra Leoneans who need the intervention of SLBA, as lawyers have done in Pakistan, in Nigeria and in Russia.
NOTE: The author, Ishmail Pamsm-Conteh holds an LLB (Hons), MSc (Criminal Justice Policy) and a PhD (Law). Currently he is the Dean of Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship at the Ernest Bai Koroma University in Makeni. He is also a Lecturer in law at the University of Makeni (UNIMAK).
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