By Ishmael Sallieu Koroma
Rights activist, Lawyer Sorie Sengbe Marah has urged the government of Sierra Leone to table the tripartite report in Parliament for it to be legal and constitutional. Speaking a two-day national conference on mobilizing the civil society community towards genuine electoral reforms, peace and national cohesion in Sierra Leone, organized by the National Elections Watch (NEW) at the Shangri-La Hotel, Lumley Beach in Freetown, Sorie told the civil society community that the “first call must be to urge government to take the tripartite report to Parliament otherwise we are just playing.”
He said that there was no constitutional basis for the setting up of the tripartite committee, disclosing that doing such should be pursuant to a law like what the audit service did in giving them effect to do a report every year. “There is no basis for it in the constitution. There is no basis for it in any law,’’ Marrah averred, adding: “That does not mean there can be no basis.” Sorie Sengbe Marrah stated that his comment on the legal aspect of the tripartite is a way of elevating the process from a political process to a legal process but said that there is also a room to transform the process.
“Most of the recommendations in the tripartite, are in the constitutional review report, like I have always said, we are duplicating our efforts. You will find nearly some of the most critical recommendations of the cross-party report,’’ Marrah pointed out.
Lawyer Marah furthered that most of what is in the tripartite report recommendation would require constitutional reform hence the need to get the tripartite report to Parliament but highlighted that the review process is shrouded in secrecy thus challenging the government setting up of a technical committee on the constitutional review process which he said cannot subject the wishes of the people collectively to just a committee.
Lawyer Sorie Sengbe Marah went on to state that in 2019, when the White Paper of the constitutional review process was published, he was one of those critics who saw that Paper as falling below the collective aspirations of the people of Sierra Leone.
“It is very, very critical, some of these recommendations. We cannot leave them behind otherwise it will mean that we will have to come back to this.’’ The rights activist revealed that the setting up of the cross-party committee on electoral systems and management bodies’ review undermines the integrity and independence of the country’s electoral commission.
“If we have a political process that seeks to question that, with all the best of intentions you will mean that without saying ECSL didn’t do some of their work,’’ he said, indicating that there is a dichotomy between the controversy over the elections and the process.
The right activist however lamented instead of a dialogue; the approach ought to have been an audit into the ECSL which didn’t occur unfortunately throughout the tripartite committee meetings.
“Throughout the process of the tripartite, the critical process of audit was omitted and so, we didn’t have an opportunity to confirm what the US Ambassador said about the ECSL having one figure, APC as a party having another figure,’’ the right activist said.
Activist Marrah went to state that added to the legal issues were some critical recommendations, like the electoral commission seizing of what they termed classified information stating that there is no basis to classify these documents as such by the electoral body of the country.
“I understand the need for data protection law, but we don’t have a data protection law yet, but more importantly, the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone is built on the mantra of transparency.’’
