By Judiciary Communications
Judiciary Communications, Peace Mission Training Centre, Rogbangba, Freetown, 14th February 2014: The Spokesperson for the Judiciary of Sierra Leone, Elkass Sannoh, has informed youth coppers that apart from poor salary and unqualified staffing, Court Clerks were regularly accused of misplacing Court files and Sureties were at the same jumping bails as a normal pattern at the Judiciary.
Addressing over three hundred and fifty youth coppers of Batch five, the Communications Director said, “that was the status of the Judiciary before the appointment of the current Chief Justice, His Lordship Justice Desmond Babatunde Edwards in December 2018 by His Excellency President Dr. Julius Maada Bio.” This abnormal behaviour, he said has changed.
“In addition, there was nothing like Court Operations Manager, Principal Accountant, Human Resources Manager, Procurement and Logistics Manager, Supreme Court Registrar, Court of Appeal Registrar and Estate and Facilities Officer among host of other positions,” said Elkass Sannoh, adding that “We also had insufficient Judges and Magistrates with huge burden as referenced by the 2017-2018 Management and Functional Review Report with one 143,000 citizens to a Judicial Officer.”
According to him, the Judiciary’s activities were not only shrouded in secrecy, but they were never accountable to the public. Even data records or Court management became a nightmare. He went further to state that the Court infrastructures were, and some are still dilapidated for human habitation. Judges and Magistrates were writing Judgements in their dark chambers where they will be sweating with no AC Facility. For instance, the main Law Courts building was a trading centre for street hawkers.
He said even journalists were not spared, noting that, Court Reporters were not only deprived of the much-needed information, their job was not respected by the Judiciary administration.
To worsen the situation, he said the Judiciary at that time only had one University graduate apart from the Master and Registrar and the Deputy Master and Registrar who are or were lawyers.
Referencing the unprecedented achievements of the Judiciary, he said Magistrates and Judges were receiving what many described as pittance before 2019 compared with others in the sub-region. Now, there is improved salary and better conditions for Magistrates and Judges, Master and Deputy Master and Registrars.
As a Guest Lecturer, Sannoh said the Chief Justice established first Virtual Court to expedite cases before the Court. The Court gives the opportunity to suspects in detention to be in detention and still have their cases heard. Similarly, a Witness has the opportunity to be heard even when he or she is living abroad. In the same vein, the new Commercial Court Rules 2020 allow for evidence to be given on application to the Judge from abroad through zoom for the first time.
Since 2019 without donor support, the Judiciary with support from the Government has been able to conduct Special High Court Criminal Sessions thrice every year in places where there are no Resident Judges with over 823,000 persons having access to justice in those places. During the period under review (January 2019 to December 2022), the actual recurrent expenditure towards this activity from funds allocated to the Judiciary from the Government amounted to Four Million, Six Hundred and Twenty-Seven Thousand and Seventy-Three new Leones (SLe. 4,627,073.00). Apart from the increased access to justice, these regular Court sittings reduced the financial burden on the people and the difficulties to travel outside their localities just to seek justice
