A very senior member of the Sierra Leone Justice Sector has told Awareness Times that no Magistrate in Sierra Leone has the right to conduct any Contempt Hearing regardless of whether the alleged contemptuous action concerned a matter in front of him or not. He opined that, “Only in a Banana Republic”, will any Magistrate get away with such naked abuse of his judicial authority.
“I am reading about a female journalist being summarily sent to jail by an ordinary District Magistrate for alleged contempt. This is outrageous! No Magistrate has that power to do so. Only a High Court Judge and above can conduct Contempt hearings and/or punish a person for Contempt of Court. If it really happened and that woman was committed to prison by that Magistrate, then it is a total outrage and I hope someone applies Section 17(4) against that Magistrate,” our source said.
Awareness Times has learnt that Section 17(4) of the Sierra Leone Constitution states: “Any person who is unlawfully arrested or detained by any other person shall be entitled to compensation therefore from that other person”.
Tolla Thompson: Supervises Magistrates
Another senior member of the Bar who also wanted anonymity asked Awareness Times to “name and shame the culprits to help the public to know the cankerworms in the Judiciary”.
“Not just the Magistrate but anyone else in the Judiciary who attempts to cover up such a serious crime against that female journalist should be named and shamed. Any member of the Judiciary who covers up such a criminal act of sending an innocent woman to jail unlawfully, should be named, shamed and publicly disgraced,” the senior lawyer said.
“Some of what happens in the Judiciary today is making this country look like a Banana Republic. Sometimes, I actually kneel down and pray for a miracle in the Judiciary or this country is finished. Totally finished,” he said.
“It is a fact that at a time when the whole world is moving towards civilised and modern day judicial practise which dictates a move away from all naked abuse of judicial authority, there is a particular old, frail Judge who helped corrupt this country from the days of Siaka Stevens, continued to corrupt Joseph Momoh, corrupted Valentine Strasser, corrupted the SLPP and is going to make President Koroma’s new APC dream for the Judiciary all come to a big, fat zero,” one citizen opined to our correspondents along Hangha Road, Kenema yesterday.
It should be noted that retired Justice M.E. Tolla Thompson is in charge of supervising Magistrates in Sierra Leone
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Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
