On Tuesday in Abuja, a daughter of Liberia raised her right hand before the nations of West Africa and swore to serve them “honorably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously.” With that oath, Cllr. Charlyne M. Brumskine became a judge of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice for the 2026–2030 term, and the first Liberian woman to sit on that bench. THE ANALYST salutes her. We say congratulations, and we say thank you.
We thank her because this seat did not fall from the sky. It came through a competitive screening by the ECOWAS Judicial Council and an appointment by the Authority of Heads of State and Government at the Freetown summit. She said it plainly herself: “I fought for it. I deserve it.” This is a woman who has practiced law for more than two decades, taught in our law schools, carried legal awareness to ordinary people, and stood on the national ticket as Alexander Cummings’ running mate in 2023. She has known victory and she has known defeat, and she kept her dignity through both.
We cannot speak of the daughter without bowing to the father. Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine was one of the great legal minds this country has produced. The son of Grand Bassa served as President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate from 1997 to 1999. He built the Liberty Party into a national force and ran for the presidency three times, in 2005, 2011 and 2017. He did not win the Mansion. But he won something many who sat in it never won: the respect of friends and opponents alike, for his intellect, his courtesy and his faith in the rule of law.
When he died on November 20, 2019, many of us felt the country had lost a teacher. On Tuesday in Abuja, the teacher’s lesson walked into the courtroom in his daughter’s robe. Somewhere, we believe, the old counselor is smiling.
A father’s name is the cloth his children wear. Charlyne has worn that cloth with care. But from today, the name is no longer only Brumskine. It is Liberia. Every ruling she writes and every dissent she files will be read in Banjul and Cotonou, in Abuja and Accra, as the work of a Liberian woman. That is honor. It is also weight.
So we say to her, as elders say to a child leaving the village for the big town: go well, but remember where you come from. Remember the market woman in Buchanan whose goods were seized without a hearing. Remember the journalist jailed for a story and the farmer pushed off his land. These are the people who come before the ECOWAS Court when their own governments fail them. The individual human rights docket is the court’s busiest, and it is where her conscience will be tested most.
She will also meet the court’s oldest problem. Its judgments are often ignored by the very governments that signed its treaty. A judge cannot send soldiers to enforce a ruling. What she can do is write judgments so clear, so fair and so well-reasoned that no head of state can wave them away without shame. That is the only army a judge commands, and we urge her to keep it sharp.
We urge her, too, to remember the women. She said this win belongs to “Liberia, Liberian women.” Let it belong also to the African woman who still has to fight twice as hard to be heard half as much. Let young girls in Greenville and Gbarnga look at Judge Brumskine and decide that the robe can fit them too.
Independence matters most of all. On that bench, she is not Liberia’s lawyer. Her loyalty is to the treaty, the evidence and the truth. Her father taught that the law is bigger than any man. She must now prove that it is bigger than any government.
Small small, chicken drinks water. We pray that when her term ends, West Africa will say a Liberian woman came, served with competence, dignity and unwavering integrity, as she promised, and left the court better than she found it.
Congratulations, Judge Brumskine. Make us proud. Make Africa’s women proud. And carry your father’s name well.