EDITORIAL: What’s Supreme Court Up to in Controversial Ruling?

THE RULING BY the Supreme Court of Liberia over the weekend in the case brought before it by the Speaker of the 55th Legislature over attempts by his colleagues to “illegally” whisked him off from job has added fuel to the fire than creating the calm for which it was meant. Lawyers as well as non-lawyers have reacted to the ruling, many of them unanimous in the view that the ambiguousness of the High Court has left much to desire. Like other Liberians, we, too, are disappointed.

IN A HIGHLY polarized country, a country still nursing the wounds of the 2023 general and presidential elections and the residual aftereffects of the civil conflict which left us espousal to the “rule of men” rather than “rule of law”, brute force and “justice by conquest”, the final arbiter of justice in contemporary Liberia needed not be in ambivalent, flippant, and resigned in authoring such a historical, precedent-laden opinion – a decision not only impacting the parties in the case but that  also impacts other courts, other branches of government and the social and economic fabric of the lives of all Liberians.

ONE REASON WHY the opinion has generated enormous public disquiet is that the nation depends on the Supreme Court to dispense justice in a way that permeates and helps to bring order to our society as a whole. It serves to inform others, not involved in the case about how laws and policies are likely to be applied in the future. Individuals and corporations look to the court edicts to understand the law, to make decisions and to take actions based on the precedents established those decisions. Sadly, this is not what Liberians have got from its Appellate Court this time around.

WHAT THE PEOPLE – legal scholars and ordinary Liberians – have rather got from the crucial legal opinion is confusion, uncertainly and bickering. If there was clarity and unambiguity in the Supreme Court decision in the prevailing matter, legal scholars won’t have confusion and diversity in their understanding of the merit and demerits of the ruling, and both parties in the feud would not be celebrating mutual victories.

COURTS ARE NOT called in our democratic system of governance and jurisprudence to be “twin mother” – to pacify and pamper conflicting parties. Their primary task is to render justice to each party in a case – justice for being wrong and justice for being on the right side.

AS WE ALL have seen, the case Koffa vs. “majority bloc”, the latter’s actions cannot be “ultra vires”, abhorrent to or violative of the constitution and yet there is no remedy under the law to address that “ultra vires”. If the Constitution is that law of a country that supersedes all other laws, and which brings all other actions of individuals and institutions in check, it would be wrong that the Supreme Court refrained from becoming more definitive, bold and clear in providing opinions straight and direct?

AS THE PARTIES – both the petitioner, Koffa and bloc, and defendants, the “majority bloc” – claim they won the case, can the Supreme Court say it has resolved the impasse; can it say it saved the country from the complications which the nation had feared and for which the petitioner petitioned the court? Has the Supreme Court not created more confusion; has it not emboldened the “majority bloc” which understands the opinion as a victory and is therefore grandstanding to keep on its “ultra vires” actions? Who would have queried the Court had it been definitive to say that, because the meetings and actions of the “majority bloc” were ultra vires, they needed to submit to Article of 33 and 49 of the Constitution and find a way to process their contentions?

AS IT STANDS, we can say boldly and clearly that Supreme Court has failed in saving a troubled nation. No two parties can be right in the same case. It is neither the “majority bloc” is right in its actions and that Koffa and his colleagues should submit to the power of the majority or that “majority bloc’s” actions are truly ultra vires and must be compelled to go under Koffa’s gavel until the right thing is done.

SO SAD WE have come this far, yet again, because a High Court failed grossly to be the High Court.   

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