By Mohamed T Massaquoi
For one month now there has been no sitting at the Pujehun Magistrate Court, the court Registrar Fayia Joshua Mansaray, has disclosed.
“It has taken complete one month without magistrate court sitting in the district headquarters town of Pujehun and over eight to nine months without sitting in Zimmi Makpele, along the Mano River Border axis,” Mr Joshua told Politico.
The situation, according to various sources in the local judicial sector, has led to frustration caused by a backlog of cases awaiting hearing.
According to the court registrar, this situation was as a result of the fact that the only vehicle available to the magistrate, who is resident in the regional headquarters town of Bo, had been damaged beyond repair.
The deployment of Magistrate George Edwin to Pujehun last march had raised hope in the district. And his initial actions even raised further the people`s expectations.
Prior to his deployment, Pujehun had had a backlog of cases. There used to be only two court sittings per month for the whole district. This was increased to four sittings.
Mr Edwin within a short space of time committed 14 cases to the high court in Bo, a greater percentage of which were related to sexual penetration, one of the dominant societal issues in the district, much to the delight of rights groups and local authorities.
Some of these people now fear that the current situation threatens to undermine the little gains registered within the last over six months. They say it has the tendency to influence high crime rate with the potential to compromise cases as had been the case before Magistrate Edwin came.
Court Registrar Mansaray said his office had communicated to their head office in Freetown with regards to the situation of the vehicle but that they`d only received promises for a solution.
“He [magistrate] has to cover over 40 miles to attend court sitting in Pujehun every weekend,” he said. “This is making the work of the court irrelevant in the district.”
The court registrar also said at some point the District Security Coordination team appealed to the Sierra Leone Police, the District Ebola Response Centre and the military who occasionally helped in terms of providing vehicle when it was needed. But this couldn’t be sustained partly because of issues around fuelling.
Emmanuel M. Fawundu, Director of the Rural Agency for Community Action Programme (RACAP/SL), a Pujehun-based CSO, questioned why there isn’t a provision for a resident magistrate in the district itself.
He told politico that his organization had been closely monitoring human rights issues in the district and said it was at a “crisis” level.
“The lack of resident magistrate in the district has been contributing to a high level of teenage pregnancy and other crimes in the district,” Fawundu said. He said poor conditions of service was among the reasons forwarded by some magistrates for their reluctance to stay in far-flung parts of the country.
“This is also leading to abuses even in the correctional centre as people spend more time beyond expectation before they are tried at the magistrate court. And this is a complete neglect on the side of the government in providing human rights and security for the people in the district.”
(C) Politico Online 01/10/15
