SUPREME COURT GROWLS -‘Return to Status Quo Ante,’ It Orders House Protagonists as Mandamus Hearing Looms

MONROVIA –The D-Day in the standoff on Capitol Hill is looming on the horizon, drawing ever closer, as the High Court of the land has taken the seize of the matter with a strongly worded order on belligerent parties to run to status quo ante. For the second time in a month, incumbent constitutionally elected Speaker of the House, J. Fonati Koffa, has taken recourse to the law as his political foes escalate tensions with the enthronement of another Speaker as a replacement. Yet again, the Supreme Court has placed a stay order on all and any move until a hearing consistent with law is heard and the veracity of Koffa’s claims are looked into. The Analyst reports. 

The ongoing battle for the House Speaker leadership up Capitol Hill has taken a rather unexpected turn, with the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia placing a stay order on all further proceedings or actions initiated by the Majority Bloc, with specific instructions of a return to status quo ante pending the determination of the Writ of Mandamus filed last Thursday by embattled Speaker Fonati Koffa and his corps of lawmakers.

Speaker Koffa and his supporters in the House are requesting due process as only legal means of removing him from the Speaker position amid pronouncements that he has been replaced by the “majority bloc”.

In a strongly worded notice to Supreme Court Marshall, Brigadier General Amos B. Kesseh Dickson, Sr., the Full Bench of the Honorable Court on November 22, 2024 commanded the Minister of Justice/Attorney General to appear and file returns on the side of the law before the Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia, Temple of Justice, on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, at the hour of 9:00 a.m., as to whether or not the Petitioner’s Petition should be granted.

“You will also notify the referenced Members of the House of Representatives to also file their returns,” the High Court said in its notice.

Continuing, the Court ordered that “you are further commanded to instruct the Minister of Justice and the referenced members of the House of Representatives to file their official returns to this Writ in the Office of the Clerk of this Honorable Court on or before the said 26^th day of November A.D. 2024; and have the members of the House of Representatives to return to Status Quo Ante and Stay all further proceeding or actions pending the determination of the matter; and to read to them the original and leave a copy of the writ with them; and as to when and how you shall have serve this writ, you will make known by filing your official returns hereto on the back of the original copy in the office of the Clerk of this Honorable Court on or before the said 26^th day of November A.D. 2024.”

“And for so doing, this shall constitute your legal and sufficient authority. Given under my hand and seal of the Honorable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia this 22nd day of November A.D. 2024,” the SC notice declared.

The Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court in its October 2024 Term includes Her Honor Sie-A-Nyene G. Yuoh, Chief Justice; Her Honor Jamesetta H. Wolokolie, Associate Justice; His Honor Yussif D. Kaba, Associate Justice; His Honor Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, Sr.; Associate Justice; and Her Honor Ceaineh Clinton-Johnson, Associate Justice.

The Honorable Supreme Court’s decision to place a stay order on actions of the Majority Bloc comes in the wake of the election by the Majority Bloc of Montserrado County District # 11 lawmaker Richard Koon as the new Speaker.

Following Koon’s election as the new House Speaker on Thursday, this paper was authoritatively informed that the process was set into motion to strip Representative Koffa of all legislature privileges pertaining to his speaker position.

Predicated to those moves by the “majority bloc”, Speaker Fonati Koffa and members of the pro-Koffa bloc last Thursday beseeched the Honorable Supreme Court to counter several unconstitutional actions of the Majority Bloc led by Deputy Speaker Thomas Fallah and Representative Samuel G. Kogar.

Some of the actions which the Koffa bloc prayed the Supreme Court to reverse include what they termed as the convening of an illegal plenary without the Speaker who is constitutionally acknowledged as “presiding officer” of the House of Representatives; using the illegal plenary to illegally suspend three members of the legislature without according them due process; illegally restructuring and reconstituting Statutory Committees of the House of Representatives; and unconstitutionally seizing and taking possession of the 2025 Draft National Budget by the Deputy Speaker.

Meanwhile, Speaker Fonati Koffa and his allied members of the House also filed a writ of mandamus over the Speaker’s illegal removal.

A writ of mandamus is a judicial remedy consisting of a court order that commands a government official or entity to perform an act it is legally required to perform as part of its official duties, or to refrain from performing an act the law forbids it from doing.

Writs of mandamus are usually used in situations where a government official has failed to act as legally required or has taken a legally prohibited action.