By Francis H. Murray
The Supreme Court of Sierra Leone has passed a landmark ruling, clearing questions about the legitimacy of the appointment of Francis Ben Kaifala as ACC Commissioner.
In a unanimous decision on Monday at the Law Court’s Building in Freetown, the panel five judges – four Supreme Court judges and one court of appeal judge - ruled that standing at the Bar and being a legal practitioner starts from the day of call to the Bar.
Ibrahim Sorie, former President of the Sierra Leone Bar Association, had filed the application to the Supreme Court by way of an Originating Notice of Motion dated 30th May, 2019, against the General Legal Council (GLC), seeking an interpretation of certain sections of the 1991 Constitution and the Legal Practitioners Act of 2000 in respect of the qualification of lawyers to hold certain offices.
Mr Sorie was seeking a determination on whether it could be said that to be qualified to be appointed a judge to the Superior Court, the constitutionally required periods should be calculated from year of signing the permanent register, rather than the year of call, and whether it could be said that failure to be admitted and enrolled into the Roll of Court disqualifies one from being appointed Judge of the Supreme Court. He also sought the determination of whether the Defendants/Respondents’ interpretation of the provisions of Sections 135(3) and 135(4) of the Constitution and the Legal Practitioners Act of 2000, discloses and produces an unreasonable, unfair, unjust, confusing and absurd result in its application, and whether the defendants, over a long period of time, having consistently interpreted, construed and applied standing to be calculated from date of call, can now change the generally accepted understanding of how standing is counted.
The panel comprised Justices Allan Halloway, Sengu Koroma and Alusine Sesay, and a Court of Appeal Judge, Miata Samba. They ruled that standing and seniority is determined by the date of call to the bar and not from the date of signing or enrolment in the permanent register of legal practitioners.
The appointment of Kaifala as ACC commissioner by President Bio in 2018 attracted criticisms from many quarters, including within the judiciary, questioning his legitimacy to hold the office based on his standing at the Bar.
Following the ruling, the ACC Commissioner posted his reaction on social media, noting that the ruling had cleared him of all allegations which bordered on his qualifications for the office.
It means that “I was way over 10 years and absolutely qualified when appointed commissioner of the anti-corruption commission in 2018. All those who challenged my appointment on that ground and for so long called my appointment illegal, now owe me and President Bio an apology,’’ he noted.
The ruling has overturned the current General Legal Council's directive which begins to count years of standing from the date one signs the Permanent Register.
Many consider the Supreme Court’s ruling as a landmark decision that clear a lot of legal practitioners and judges who previously may have been considered as premature appointees to the bench and other positions in society for which years of standing was a requirement.
The ruling is also seen as a panacea to what would have been an unprecedented spate of appeals against those premature legal appointments and appointees serving currently, if the GLC's position was upheld.
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