By Mustapha Sesay & Crispina Taylor
Opposition Member of Parliament, Mustapha Brima, told parliament on Tuesday that the judiciary was in a terrible condition and needed re-fixing.
He made the comment at the end of an oversight tour by the Legislative Committee to get first hand information on the judicial system in the country.
Brima said buildings housing the judiciary were nothing to write home about as they consisted of “dilapidated structures, leaking roofs, and bad toilets.”
The situation, he noted, have affected service provision in the judiciary.
The MP noted, for instance, that there were people in correctional centres whose case files were missing and they had spent over three years without trial.
He blamed a centralized system within the judiciary as having contributed greatly to the poor service delivery and wastage of resources.
Brima said the prevailing condition makes the situation “alarming” and called for improvement, noting that the judiciary was an important arm of the government.
He also said those working in the judicial service needed encouragement, and this, he said, meant good pay so that they do not compromise their credibility.
But the SLPP MP also observed that sometimes senior members of the judiciary, like judges, were “very defensive of the authority.”
The head of the Legislative Committee, Manley Spain, said the problem the judiciary was faced with was not new. He said it goes back to the 1980s.
This, he added, was purely because those working in the service have refused to changed their “behavior and attitude” in line with their work.
Spain informed the House that there were female inmates that have given birth to children in prison in Makeni and that they were staying with those children in prison and some of the children were over a year old. He called on parliament to assist the judiciary not to break down as it did leading to the 1991-2003 civil war.
The APC lawmaker said they had written a report which parliament needed to look into and act upon the recommendations therein.
© Politico 17/03/15
