Janaury 21, 2022
Albert Baron Ansu
The judiciary under the leadership of Chief Justice Babatunde Edwards has for the past three years been cleaning the stable of rot inherited from the past government and one tangible achievement is the dismantling of the mafia of sureties that hitherto rove around the high court manipulating bails.
The disclosure was made at the Ministry of Information and communications presser by no less person than the Masters and Registrar Elaine Thomas Archibald who put it bluntly that the “professional surety clique is dead.”
She added that they have been faking bail documents, conveyance and fake addresses to beat the court process.
“We sent a bus to verify address but could not find anything,” she disclosed.
In spite of the considerable achievement that have been recorded in access to justice with magistrates deployed in all districts, among other things, there are still funding gaps which the Master and Registrar stated that “we will need donor funding to survive” in the accelerated reform agenda of the judiciary.
Public Relations Officer one of the Judiciary Elkass Sannoh provided a baseline of the Human Resource deficit inherited from the past government with only one graduate, one hundred and eighty eight without university qualification and one hundred twenty self-employed.
He disclosed that there is planned judiciary week starting from the 30th to 4th of February where they have look at core issues such as persons in Correctional centers for years without being charged, missing files syndrome among other things.
Challenge of magistrates and judges with official vehicles was also highlighted as an issue to be surmounted.
The achievement of Sierra Leone being the first in the sub region to have set up sexual offender’s court was highlighted and Gambia Solicitor General is said to have paid a study tour to learn from this development.
Another reform highlighted was the introduction of an electronics system for case management.
The clarification was also made that the judiciary does not handle indictment but the office of the Attorney General does.
The Master and Registrar Elaine Thomas Archibald responded to the question of the status of the bail condition Kamarainba Mansaray saying that it has to do with meeting bail condition that they did not set in the first place. It was revealed that Kamarainba surety produced and American passport which did not the bail condition, but the other defendant in said matter satisfied the bail condition.