AYV News, July 18, 2024
The Supreme Court of Sierra Leone presided over by the Acting Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Nicholas C. Browne-Marke has ruled that the appointment of Mohamed Konneh as Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (EC-SL) was lawful and did not contravene any constitutional provisions.
“The Constitution must be read as a whole, and not in bits, cherry-picking provisions which, on their own, may appear to support one view or the other. To do so, would result in absurdity,” said the Acting Chief Justice on behalf of a panel of four justices.
The panel, which included the Hon. Chief Justice, Nicholas C. Browne-Marke (JSC), Hon. Justice M. F. Deen-Tarawally (JSC), Hon. Justice Alusine S. Sesay (JSC) and Hon. Justice Ansumana Ivan Sesay (JA) was unanimous in their decision to dismiss the case of the Plaintiffs against Mohamed Konneh, the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
In an Originating Notice of Motion filed by Charles Francis Margai, representing Patrick John and the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), the 1st and 2nd Plaintiffs in the matter, he argued that the appointment of Mohamed Konneh as Chief Electoral Commissioner when he was Director of Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) contravened constitutional provisions such as Section 32 (3) and (4), Section 75 (c), section 76 (1) (b), Section 171(1) and (4) of the 1991 Constitution.
He went on to argue that the matter before the Court involved fundamental rights and must be heard by five Supreme Court Justices.
He also argued that the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone is under strict obligation to comply with the provisions in sections 154 and 155 of Act No. 17 of 2022 which mandates the Commission to allot campaign dates for all presidential candidates, but that wasn’t done for the PMDC presidential candidate.
Consequently, they argued that the refusal by the commission to give campaign date to the PMDC was a violation of the party’s rights to launch an effective campaign to win voter’s support.
Dealing with the legitimacy of the appointment of the Chief Electoral Commissioner, the presiding judge said section 32 (4) of the 1991 Constitution talks about who is qualified to be appointed electoral commissioner, a member of parliament or a minister.
His Lordship noted that the 1st Defendant was not a member of Parliament at the time of his appointment but was qualified to be elected, adding that if he had intended to contest for a member of parliament, he would have resigned for 12 months before the date of the election.
He concluded that “but in the case of the Electoral Commissioner, there was no need for him to resign. The twelve months’ resignation for appointment is only tagged to a member of parliament and not for him as Director of the FIU.”
In another Application, Mr. Margai had called on Chief Justice Edwards and Justice Ansumana Ivan Sesay (JA) to recuse themselves from the matter on the grounds that the Chief Justice Edwards had sworn in the His Excellency President Bio while Justice Sesay was not a Justice of the Supreme Court. He stressed that the bench should comprise of Supreme Court justices only because the matter before them hinged on human rights.
Responding to the recusal application, Hon. Justice Browne-Marke said the ground on which Counsel for the Plaintiff asked for the Hon. Justice Edwards to recuse himself is in contravention of section 46 of the 1991 Constitution which said that the President shall take an oath for the execution of his office as set in the second schedule of the Constitution and subsection 5 of section 46 states that the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone or someone acting in that capacity shall administer the oath to the president.
He further clarified that Section 42 (3) states that the oath should be administered on the day the elected president is declared winner by the Returning Officer. So, the Returning Officer and the Chief Justice are the two people that have constitutional rights to carry out those functions and they are subjected to the aforementioned sections.
On Hon. Justice Ivan Sesay’s recusal, His Lordship noted that human rights provisions are encapsulated in Chapter 111, but specifically sections 15 to 28 of the 1991 Constitution, adding that section 28 (6) (a) of the 1991 Constitution says the Supreme Court shall consist of not less than five justices of the Supreme Court.
The presiding judge concluded that the recusal application against Hon. Justice Edwards in his capacity as Chief Justice, who requested Hon. Justice Ivan Sesay to join in the Supreme Court, has no basis in law and therefore fails.
Counsel representing the 1st and 2nd Defendants, B. E. Cummings, Dr. E. S. Abdulai, T. J. Mansaray, and A. B. Mansaray through a notice of motion requested the Court to strike out the case of the Plaintiffs, noting among other things that their case was fundamentally flawed and defective because it failed to come with facts and particulars upon which the Plaintiffs relied, citing Rule 90 (2) (a) of the Supreme Court Rules 1982.
Hon. Justice N. C Browne-Marke said that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice was only brought in because he is the Legal Adviser to the Government.
