Worlea-Saywah Dunah
The most stunning thing about the Supreme Court Opinion on the Koffa Bill of Information is the omission of very crucial and pertinent facts, the foremost one is the violence by Koffa loyalists that compelled the plenary to relocate to the joint hall.
It’s stunning because the Supreme Court’s iron unchangeable principle is the objective review of entire facts of a case as the foundation for the applications of the law; but it is clear that in this case when you factor the facts of that violence you will painlessly arrive at the conclusion that the plenary relocation was correct and all of its legislative actions since then are constitutional.
Besides the omission of pertinent facts something more legally ominous happened. To arrive at the opinion which declares the plenary of majority as per Article 33 as ‘unconstitutional,’ the Chief Justice created a dangerous new principle when she stated the foundation for the Opinion thus:
“As the Supreme Court renders its Opinion and Judgment, it is confronted not only with the letter of the law, the court independence and fearlessness, but also with the weight of public trust. In this moment, justice must be seen not only through the lens of legal text, but as a reflection of the people’s spirit…”
Fundamentally, the court is confronted with facts which it then used to apply the laws; therefore, the above foundation is contrary to the tradition of the Liberian judiciary. Open any Supreme Court Opinion and you will see an objective summary of the total facts, which are followed by legal analyses of every key event; strangely, this case, like the Chaloe Musu case, is a kangaroo leap over facts and the selection of a single fact to arrive at a conclusion.
Then too the Chief Justice calls on Liberians to see justice in a new way: ‘…. justice must not be seen only through the lens of the legal text, but as a reflection of the people’s spirit…!’ The Supreme Court itself disagrees with this because it has stated in over a century of Liberia’s existence that Justice is the objective application of the law or legal text to the facts of the case regardless of the persons involves; justice is always through the lens of the legal text.
Please go to the Temple of Justice in Monrovia and see that Lady Justice eyes are blindfolded. Justice has never been about a vague, unfathomable mystical concept such as ‘people’s spirit’ – it’s about people’s rights under the laws based on all of the facts of the case; this is an unrelenting theme in thousands of Supreme Court’s opinions. How does one achieve justice on nebulous concept of people’s spirit and not the laws of the land?
Again, as regards facts, Chapter III, Article 18(g) of the ECOWAS Parliament Act, requires member states national parliament to elect members to represent each country; in the pleadings, it is one of the reasons for Koffa removal as speaker. At least traverse this critical issue of the violation of the regional laws and the entire investigation process by an Article 33 majority which Koffa had refused to answer to defend himself.
A crucial fact in the full public glare is that of the management of the cases at the highest court. As the Chief Justice wrote the opinion, we are free to question as to why it took so long for the Supreme Court to hear such crucial bill of information when it is clear that the implications are sweeping as the opinion has shown?
According to the Opinion, the first ruling was on December 6, 2024; the Attorney General Opinion came on December 10, 2024, and the Bill of Information was filed on December 12, 2024; then after many political developments, the bill was withdrawn three months later in March, 2025, and refiled.
Within the period that the bill lied unattended in the offices of the Chief Justice for four months, the President delivered the State of the Nation Address, the Judiciary/the Supreme Court participated in the National Budget process, Speaker Koon presided over the passage of many legislative instruments and functions, including the budget and the SONA and attended many international functions on behalf of the state; all in the full view of the Chief Justice.
What if a constitutional ascension has taken Speaker Koon to the presidency given the fluidity and fragility of human events, will we be hearing the bill of information now?
It is important however to note that the failure of the Supreme Court in two rulings to traverse and condemn the violence of October, 2024, is precisely what emboldened the same group of representatives to again vandalize the capitol the day after this ‘new ruling.’
All of these and many more omissions of material facts and mistakes of law in the opinion as well as those raised by Justice Gbeisay in his dissent dictate a re-argument of the case. In the case Lamco vs Azzam et al, 31LLR649, the court says: “A petition for rehearing is a request to the court to reverse its own action by correcting errors and modifying or setting aside its own judgement. Its object is to point our material mistakes of the law or fact, or both, which it is claimed the court made in reaching conclusion.”
The difficulty confronting the Opinion is clear: to factor and to traverse the violence of October, 2024, which prevented the working of the lower house, is to see the constitutionality of the re-location of plenary and affirmation of all of that plenary’s legislative actions; which will also establish that the burden therefore shifts upon Koffa that upon his return to report to work to that plenary.
But the objective applications of the law erase that difficulty as the purpose of the court is to deal with all of the case facts in reaching the conclusion, not to deal with some selected facts.
Yet altogether, the doctrine of separation of powers and that the legislature has the power to govern itself, makes the opinion a troublesome meddling into long settled political matter. It is long settled political matter, because it is required that the courts take notice of all official actions which includes the judiciary participation in the budget process and justices’ refusal to participate in the SONA.
Furthermore, practitioners of the law will agree that the Supreme Court made a statement that it has declined the Bill of Information by its long inaction upon it given the gravity of the issue; it is self-evident that the court took judicial notice of all national events and legislative functions that has occurred since last December.
Truly, the opinion requires a recall; the legal text of the constitution must be restored as the cornerstone of justice in this matter, because that new concept of people’s spirit finds no anchor in our laws.
Also, the failure to analyze all of the facts which led to improper application of the law must be corrected. But, most importantly, its recall is a necessity, because it represents an untenable assault on the exclusive constitutional province and inherent powers of the legislative branch.
It is evident that, it is a non-justiciable matter as the late Chief Justice Emmanuel Gbalazeh warned the court to never intervene in political matter as it lacks the capacity to enforce its judgement and that it is unconstitutional.
Bout the author: Worlea-Saywah Dunah is a lawyer and a former Nimba County Representative (2006-2018). He served as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Head of Legislative Delegation to the ACP-EU JPA. A former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. Dunah/saywahd@yahoo.com