OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT & EXECUTIVE OF THE SIERRA LEONE BAR ASSOCIATION

Dear Madam President,

I had decided to refrain from active activism during this period leading to the general elections. It is time for politicians to canvass support, articulate their manifestoes and convince the electorates to vote them into office or extend their mandate as the case may be. My two decades of activism from the incipient years as an accountability ambassador for the outreach section of the Special Court for Sierra Leone would not permit me to be silent in the face of the rising tides of tensions around the pending general elections which pose a serious threat to our consolidated peace and democracy.

I have decided to do an open letter to you and your executive to call your attention and urge immediate action given the accusations and counteraccusations being traded between the incumbent and the leading opposition parties. And forgive me if you and your executive had plans to arbitrate in this matter—I certainly did not have any notice of any contemplated action.

On Wednesday, 14th June 2023, the opposition APC read a laundry list of concerns bordering on the governance of the state and the conduct of the general elections slated for 24th June 2023. The presidential aspirant, Dr Samura Kamara, gave a 72-hour ultimatum for the resignation of the Chief Electoral Commissioner and the other commissioners alleging a vacancy of confidence in them. On Friday, 16th June 2023, the ruling party SLPP also held a press conference and accused the APC of threatening to destabilise the state and wreak havoc on law and order. The two parties seem to be in readiness for cross-swords way beyond the dissimilarities in their manifestoes. Both parties have invited the attention or intervention of the international community or their elections monitoring bodies in this stand-off. But charity should begin at home! The founding vision for our bar association was and is still that we would always serve as a watchdog of our democracy and a primus guardian of our nation’s constitution. It, therefore behoves us always to play a mediatory role whenever our peace and governance fray around the edges lest we be accused of passivity like generations before us in the Truth and Reconciliation chronicles.

Madam President, the bar association cannot perch on the fence at a crucial time like this. The nation needs our leadership to shepherd the peace and tranquillity some of our compatriots died for while others endure the visible and invisible scars. We have a vested interest in peace and democracy more than the international community or our development partners. It’s time your executive took leadership in getting all the players to beat their drawn swords into ploughshares. As a nation, we know that we cannot resolve our differences through conflict; if we could, we would not have taken more than a decade to fight only to reach a peace accord through talks at Lomé. Twenty years after our bloody civil conflict and the numerous lessons on securing peace and transitional justice learnt and exported to other nations, our association must not elect reticence over action or choose reaction overproduction. Both parties have raised legitimate concerns, and those concerns must not be given deaf ears. The bar association can provide leadership to external partners and all relevant electoral bodies to resolve the differences and engender credible, free, fair, and transparent general elections. For instance, the bar association can summon the incumbent and the leading opposition parties including the ECSL and all relevant electoral monitoring bodies to the table so that all parties can be heard on their concerns, legitimate or otherwise, to address them as expeditiously as possible within the confines of the law. Our country has learnt, unfortunately in a painful way, that dialogue is better than aggression and it, usually, clears unnecessary doubt and misunderstanding.

I hope you and your executive would consider an immediate leadership action so that the bar association is not considered once again complicit in any post-conflict democratic excesses or wrongs.

Please accept, Madam President, the assurance of my highest consideration of your office.

Yours sincerely,

Augustine Sorie-Sengbe Marrah Esq.
Activist lawyer
Member of the SLBA