The Judiciary, being the third arm of government is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that individual rights as provided by the constitution are protected. This role is not only crucial in the creation and preservation of a stable state, but it is also of indispensable importance in combating corruption, a weird practice that stands on the way to national development.
Ravaged by over a decade of civil unrest, plagued by a severe lack of financial resources, and politically not independent, the Sierra Leone judiciary is both structurally and institutionally unable to address all the legal issues it is presented with. In effect, it is yet a mere skeletal vestige of the past that largely gives way to the preponderance of corruption. The Sierra Leone judiciary is the most corrupt arm of government and the second most corrupt institution according to the 2000 Corruption Perception Survey. The judiciary is also one of the six Hot-spot institutions (institutions with high risks of corrupt practices based on their systems and procedures) according to the 2002 Governance and Corruption Survey.
In a bid to be down to business in fighting corruption, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) which has the prime responsibility to monitor public functionaries, in a peculiar effort has developed the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) as a vital prerequisite that embodies strategic action plans that show the way forward in combating corruption and assisting the ACC in its noble fight. This article therefore examines the NACS with specific references to its major findings and recommendations about the judiciary, which the latter is still lagging to accomplish and thus making openings for corrupt practices to prevail in the institution.
To start with, defendants in particularly magistrate courts, despite their constitutional rights to legal representation are excluded from this right because the state simply does not have enough lawyers at its disposal. Defendants are often unaware of the charges against them until the first day of trial. To this end, NACS recommends in pursuant to the constitution that defendants are given legal representation upon request and to let accused persons know the charges filed against them immediately after arrest. This practice puts accused persons at a fair footing to prepare their defence and additionally submerges the probabilities of corrupt practices within the judiciary.
With regards the judges, whilst they continue living without a very substantial salary scale and reasonable conditions of service, a couple of them are well above retirement age and they are therefore employed on contract by the government. This practice has a high penchant of employing pliable judges in cases where the government interest is at stake. Also, in as much as this is a constitutional provision, the NACS submits that with increased salaries and attractive conditions of service for judges, young energetic practitioners will be attracted to the bench which will forestall the hiring of retired judges that might be politically influenced and the soliciting and acceptance bribes.
Up to date, the judicial infrastructure is starving of resources thereby rendering justice virtually inaccessible for the average Sierra Leonean. The number of cases to be tried far out way the number of available courtrooms. The already existing courtrooms do not provide a very comfortable environment for all legal participants and equally do not offer prestige to the court. In the NACS, it is made clear that there is the need to build more courts to accommodate the amount of cases awaiting trial and make the physical conditions of work much more accommodating.
Another striking problem affecting the courts is the lack of stenographers during trials, and as a result, presiding magistrates/judges have to write court transcripts in long hand. This cumbersome process does not only distract the bench from very important matters at hand, but also drains them from the energy that could be spent on the numerous cases they view per day. This is why the NACS craves for stenographers to be present in all court hearings with sufficient access to transcribing the evidence. Actually, that the only recorded accounts of cases filter through one magistrate/judge presents a monopoly of information in his/her favor and therefore an opportunity for corruption.
Therefore, for a corrupt free judiciary to exist in Sierra Leone, the above mentioned recommendations by the NACS must be implemented. That is why it was developed mainly to prevent corruption through the adoption of various institutional policies or otherwise that would restrain the tendencies of corrupt practices. However, February 2006 made the NACS one year since it was officially lunched and no tangible or feasible strides have been taken for its implementation in especially the judiciary. The implementation of the NACS will go a long way in tackling corruption instead of just the myriad of investigations and prosecutions.
The Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme (SLCMP) far from being against prosecution of corruption cases, also views with prudent insight that corruption prevention should equally be given time and energy especially so when a number of ACC cases have been discharged from court for want of prosecution and letting offenders get away with it. The Anti Corruption Commission should therefore follow up the National Anti-Corruption Strategy in various institutions and ensure that they are fully implemented instead of just making it a piece of an office document.
The apparent realism is that, the fight against corruption until it is abundantly accomplished in the judiciary, the hope for other institutions to be contained in practising corruption will continue to submerge. Now that the judiciary is yet to arrive at very basic practices that will prevent corruption, how then can Sierra Leoneans be guaranteed that anti-corruption cases brought to court are fairly tried?
The SLCMP continues to strongly underline that in as much as improvements have occurred in some respects, there is still an imperative need for reform in especially the areas that the NACS has pointed out so that the already 67% of households that prefer using alternative mechanisms for conflict resolution than going to court will radically trim down.