Assets Recovery Team, Gracious Ride Re-Argue At Supreme Court By: Yassah J. Wright

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After many months of delay, the Supreme Court of, re-assigned Gracious Ride Incorporated and the Assets Recovery Team for argument. The matter has drawn for Tuesday, January 14, 2025, before the full bench of the Supreme Court, which the Court’s decision was communicated to the legal teams of both parties through a notice of assignment issued on Friday, January 10, 2025. The notice directed the submission of legal briefs prior to Tuesday’s hearing, as required by law. The case was argued before full bench were the Chief Justice and Associates Justices present. The legal schedule is a result of Gracious Ride’s decision to seek an appeal to the high court, following a lower court ruling in a proceeding involving both parties.  Gracious Ride had previously craved the lower court’s wisdom to stop the Asset Recovery Team from legally accessing its bank payments, transfers, financial records, and business ownership records.  Gracious Ride, again, took a flight to the Supreme Court having claimed that President Boakai has no authority to establish an Asset Recovery Team, and therefore, the Asset Recovery Team should cease to exist.  However, the high court will now determine why Gracious Ride is troubled by the existence of the Asset Recovery Taskforce, as both parties appear before the court.  The Supreme Court of Liberia had denied a Writ of Prohibition filed before it by Gracious Ride to halt the operation of the Asset Recovery Task Team. Gracious Ride, through its manager, Francis T. Blamo, had requested the court to issue a halt order on the operation of the Task Force days after the arrest and impounding of vehicles belonging to it by the Task Force.  The Task Force workings were hit hard with multiple writs filed before various courts from different individuals. The move among other things was meant to protect the linked parties and individuals from their alleged corrupt properties and finances acquired while serving in public offices.  One of the writs before the Supreme Court questioned the legitimacy of the Asset Recovery Team and filed a petition to the high court to dissolve the Task Force from operating. Reports also have it that the multiple writs to stop the working of Task Force is based on information that the team has gone 98 percent in the preparation of indictments of individuals who acquired wealth at the expense of the government, which will also be followed by a writ of Ne Exeat Republica.  As the legal battles unfold, the asset recovery in their returns, has asked the Supreme Court to strike out the petitioner’s petition from the court docket based on their inability to cite constitutional provisions that render the act of the President to issue Executive Order No. 126 that created the task force illegal. They further argued that the issuance of an executive order is a quasi-legislative and judicial lawmaking authority and power granted to the President of Liberia by the 1986 Constitution, chapters four and five, to eliminate the misuse of government resources and other corrupt practices. As a means of fighting corruption and holding duty bearers accountable for their action, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai on March 5, 2024, officially set up the Special Presidential Assets Recovery and Retrieval Task Force through Executive Order No. 126.  The mandate of the Task Force was to among other things search, seize, and investigate government assets that were obtained illegally by past officials of government and other persons of interest. Following the setting up of such body by the Liberian leader, mixed views characterized the debate on the political and social corridors of the Country with some in support in the fight against corruption while others described it as a witch hunt. With few days to the legal deliberations, all eyes are now focused on the Supreme Court to see and follow through how the proceedings will unfold as the government maintains that it remains committed in its resolve to fight corruption and to ensure that transparency and accountability in the public space can be implemented to the core.

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