By Joseph Lamin Kamara
The lead council for the plaintiff in the recent matter of the Vice President sacking has questioned the educational background of the Acting Chief Justice Valesius Victor Thomas.
In his Freetown office Charles Francis Margai was not fearful, he was confident and bold, but he refused to be put it on record as he cast his big doubt over the education of the most senior justice of the Supreme Court.
My question was: “The Chief Justice says you Mr Charles Francis Margai accused him and the other Supreme Court judges of receiving bribe from President Koroma to rule in favour of the President. What’s your proof?
“I don’t know the school he attended and the depth of his understanding of English [Language],” Margai replied.
He was speaking to Politico on Tuesday at his 46 Rawdon Street office.
“That’s all I will say for now,” he added.
And the opposition PMDC leader refused to directly answer any further questions bordering on the credibility of Justice Valesius Thomas or the other judges in the Sam-Sumana case.
Another question I asked the septuagenarian was: “The CJ [Chief Justice] in his final ruling said no provision in the Constitution specifically empowers the president to relieve his Vice President of his duties and office, but he also said [and I quote], ‘I . . . hold that the supreme executive authority of the President includes a power to relieve the Vice President of his office and duties. . . .’ What do you think of this?”
“Why not try and get his number and fix an appointment with him so that you can ask him that question yourself?” Margai responded.
Margai later said he was not afraid to speak, but he wanted to speak at the right time.
He has therefore promised to convene a news conference in the next couple of months to speak to “all journalists in the country regardless of their political affiliations.”
“People should speak and damn the consequences,” he said.
Mr Margai is already under investigation following a complaint filed by Justice Thomas on October 5, with The General Legal Council alleging that the former “made a number of scurrilous and derogatory remarks attacking the integrity of the said justices of the Supreme Court, including myself.”
Margai reportedly made these controversial comments in an interview on Culture Radio, 104. 5 FM, on September 15, 2015.
“What he [Margai] said is absolutely untrue,” the Chief Justice told Politico on Thursday, by phone.
“I know he’s the expert in English. I don’t want to go into any argument with him about English. Any stupid person on the street would understand when he said the judges were bribed. All I’m saying, if he has any evidence, let him produce it,” the CJ added.
The General Legal Council has not summoned Mr Margai to anybody of inquiry yet, though it served him on October 6 a notice of the complaint.
“Pursuant to Section 31 (4) of the Legal Practitioners Act 2000, the Disciplinary Committee (the Committee) shall, on receiving a complaint, determine whether an inquiry ought to be held into same, and if it so determines, it shall hold an inquiry into the complaint,” the notice read in part.
It did not state a timeframe in which it would determine if there ought to be an inquiry.
The Supreme Court on September 9, 2015 delivered its judgment on the matter of the Vice President of Sierra Leone, after President Ernest Bai Koroma on 17 March, 2015, in a press statement, said he had relieved Alhaji Samuel Sam-Sumana from the duties and office of Vice President.
The judgment, which came after Sam-Sumana challenged his sacking in the Supreme Court, went in favour of the President and it came with a huge outcry from the public. One latest criticism against the Supreme Court is the one done by a Sierra Leonean-born professor of Linguistics, Sheikh Kamarah, based in the United States of America.
Charles Margai told Politico that the judgment marked the end of his contract with Sam-Sumana, but the lawyer had said they would seek an appeal in the regional ECOWAS Court. He had also said that they had brought in private international detectives who were investigating the allegation that President Koroma bribed the five Supreme Court judges who presided over the matter.
Sam-Sumana recently travelled out of the country, after a reported standoff between him and authorities of the Lungi International Airport who allegedly demanded the former vice president’s diplomatic passport.
In 2007 Charles Margai’s alliance with the All People’s Congress (APC) party was instrumental in removing the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP)-led government from office.
Margai had broken away from SLPP and formed his PMDC after failing to win the SLPP`s ticket for president in the 2007 elections. But he fell out with Koroma shortly and in May, 2013 he was arrested and detained by the police during a land struggle between him the First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma.
Margai is the father of Albert Margai, former Prime Minister of Sierra Leone.
(C) Politico Online 26/10/15
