Liberia: Encouraging Sign for Rule of Law

2 August 2010

Source: allafrica.com

EDITORIAL

WE REPORTED IN a front lead of this paper last week that the Criminal Court A at the Temple of Justice has served an 8-count criminal indictment on House Deputy Speaker Mulbah Tokpah. The house deputy is currently out on bail pending preliminary court hearings scheduled by the court for early this month. Our report said he would have been behind bars pending the August court hearings had his legal counsels not picked up early winds of efforts by state prosecutors to obtain a writ of arrest and acted in time to preempt those efforts by presenting him to the court and forthwith tendering a bond for his release on bail. When he appears in court, the legislative second in command is expected to answer for his role in the near-death assault on Police Patrolman Lexington Beah during the last weekend of June 2010.

THE STATE PROSECUTION is holding the House Deputy Speaker on an 8-count indictment that includes 'criminal conspiracy', 'attempt to commit murder', and 'theft of property'. When he takes the witness' stand in the next one or two weeks, Deputy House Speaker Mulbah Tokpah will be the first sitting high legislative official to face criminal charges. When that happens also, we have no doubt it is bound to raise questions amongst political observers about the extent of legislative immunity and about the urgency, the wisdom, and political ramification of prosecuting a sitting deputy speaker who is from the opposition. But it will also disprove the myth that honorability is an entitlement for public officials that they do not have to anything to prove by what they do or refrain from doing. More importantly, it will raise the question of conditions beyond trial: what becomes of the status of the indictee upon conviction; what if not found guilty? How much does politics contribute to what seems a legal imperative for the Sirleaf Administration given that the deputy speaker comes from the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), the voted major rival to the ruling Unity Party?

ALL THESE WHAT'S make the stomach churn and most Liberians would prefer to avoid such a situation that raises questions fundamental to legal and political ifs. They would prefer the state to drop the case against the deputy speaker, seek a compromise, and resolve to move forward with each promising to work for the good of country using the law as the bedrock. They will, in the vain name of peace, prefer the matter swept under the carpet as countless other such vile questions were swept under the carpet for decades and eventually formed the foundation of Liberia's culture of impunity and the culture of outlaw bravado, which some public officials still foolhardily find attractive today. But we think it because of these questions fundamental to the legal and political uncertainties that the state must proceed with the prosecution of the deputy speaker as a matter of national priority. We think so not because it is Mr. Mulbah Tokpah, but because it is the call of the times of extreme need for the rule of law to take over from the rule of political machoism and the sinister culture of outlaw bravado.

COMPROMISING AND 'WASHING dirty linen behind the house' is certainly not the best option opened to the Sirleaf Administration in the face of a legal situation where the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Liberia is charged with felony. We think the state prosecution led by Solicitor General Cllr. Watkins Wright has started a process fundamental to testing the rule of law in this country and from what we see so far, they are on the right path. We bid them continue to the end, not stopping once to be tempted by political expediency and public sentiments, which are all too often willing to compromise the law to achieve quickset cover-over solutions. We hail Cllr. Francis Garlawolo, the legal counsel of the deputy speaker, for mustering the courage to represent the legislator rather than working behind the scene, as is common practice, to avoid prosecution in order to 'protect the speaker's prestige and honorableness' from being smudged by legal records. He has picked the gauntlet alright and all that is required now is to work to the end, not stopping to claim disadvantage or any sort of subterfuge for backing out of this noble effort to set the law on its marks.

THIS NATION HAS come too far experimenting with compromises that only served to exacerbate the difficulties of political and legal reforms. It is time to test the laws and once and for all determine how the nation must proceed in line with the rule of self-governance its people have set for themselves as sovereigns. It is time officials of government are held legally responsible for the paths they chose voluntarily to pursue outside their official realms and bounds. It is time those who are wronged by those who are all too willing to use state power to obtain instant personal gratification get redress through legal recourse rather than otherwise. It is most time to prove that the law is a two-edged sword, which cuts on both edges, that just as the law empowers and sets ordinary men and women above others, it also cuts the platform from beneath them when these men and women fail to balance privilege with responsibility.

WITH THE INDICTMENT already served on the deputy speaker, we believe there is no turning back from his being the first sitting legislator to face criminal charges, possibly revealing the full meaning of Article 42 of the Constitution of Liberia regarding parliamentary immunity, the public conduct of lawmakers, and Liberia's newfound commitment to the rule of law. The public is waiting with bated breath to see how this turns out and they cannot afford to see drawn-out litigation that runs into oblivion, as is common practice.