T he lack of effective justice delivery system has always been one of the major concerns for Sierra Leoneans as it contributed significant to the decade long civil conflict. During the war years, almost every state institution was virtually crippled with the justice sector, particularly in the provinces least spared from the wanton destruction. Seven years after the war was officially declared over, inhabitants of the northern region still continue to face this malaise despite the genuine effort of the Government and its partners to reform the system Those efforts are being systematically undermined by the activities of certain individuals in positions of authority as chiefs in the northern part of the country. The chiefs have continue to set up the technically illegal courts all over, which has become inimical to enhancing the administration of the rule of law in that part of the country. The setting up of illegal courts known as chief’s courts or kangaroo courts in almost every community has created an unhealthy competition with the statutorily established local courts in clear contravention to section 40(1) a & b of the Local Court Act, 1963. The said section states that any person who shall “(a) within the area of jurisdiction of any duly constituted local court exercise or attempt to exercise judicial powers, otherwise in accordance with the provisions of any act or (b) sit as a member of such court without due authority shall be guilty of an offence…” This practice has become the vogue in particularly the rural areas with negative consequences on the poor, illiterate, and unsuspecting populace as will be discussed in this piece.
Section 13(1)(b) of the Local Court Act, 1963 states that the local court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine “ all civil cases governed by customary law other than cases between Paramount Chiefs or tribal authority involving a question of title to land”. This provides for the local courts to have authority to hear and determine disputed questions of law in all civil matters as sanctioned by the customary law of the realm, save for matters between Paramount Chiefs and those involving title to land. There is no provision in the Act that mandates the setting up of courts that are analogous to the local courts in the various chiefdoms in the provinces. Yet, in spite of this unambiguous provision, there has been a proliferation of parallel courts being referred to as kangaroo courts in the northern part of the country that are purely administered by the chiefs in the locality. Most unfortunately, perhaps, is the fact that these kangaroo courts have not only usurped the powers of the local courts, but have unlimited jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters, contrary to the Courts Act, 1965.
There have been spurious arguments by some local authorities for the growing number of such courts in the region. Some hold it that the language and procedures used in the kangaroo courts is friendlier to litigants than those used in the local courts thus making justice more easily accessible. A presiding chief at a kangaroo court can, with audacity, order the arrest and subsequent prosecution of any person suspected to have committed an offence in the community without recourse to the technicalities of the penal code of the land. Moreover, in the case of civil wrongs, the presiding chief can, with alacrity, setting all formal procedures aside, invite parties in dispute and expeditiously, most often the same day in fact, settle the matter. This they claim is hardly the practice in the local courts. Furthermore, because of the clout the chiefs enjoy, as custodians of the laws and customs of their respective domains, in the rural settings, the majority of kangaroo court users are more inclined to respect the judgments of the chiefs as compared to that of the local courts.
The arguments advanced in the preceding paragraph are absurd in every respect as it relates to the administration of justice in civilized societies. The establishment of illegal courts for specious reasons as discussed is adverse for an emerging democracy like ours that is still grappling with the tenets of the rule of law. It runs contrary to both the grain and spirit of the Local Court Act, 1963 and the Constitution of Sierra Leone , Act No.6, 1991. Such courts have no jurisdictions in both civil and criminal cases and therefore their decisions do not have the force of law as they have not been statutorily established by an act of parliament. That aside, the language and procedure; and expediting cases are all hallmarks of the administration of justice in local courts thus defeating the arguments put forward earlier.
The dangers of having kangaroo courts operate in the rural areas cannot be overstated. An established rule in almost all judicial systems is that they must have an appellate system. That is, if a party is aggrieved about a verdict of a court, that party is given an opportunity to challenge such verdict in a higher court of law until it reaches the highest court of the land which decision is then final. This rule is markedly provided for in section 30(1) of the Local Court Act, 1963 which states that “any person aggrieved by any order or decision of a local court may, instead of appealing to the District appeal court, appeal to the Group local appeal court within fifteen days from the decision of the local court…” But unlike the local court, such ingrained provision is not applicable in the case of decisions in kangaroo courts. A decision or order from a kangaroo court cannot be challenged nor overturn; affected persons do not have the opportunity to appeal. Such a practice has the tendency to make aggrieved parties predisposed to the use of extra-judicial means to settle disputes thereby putting the hard-won peace imperil.
The kangaroo courts have, on a number of occasions, come in direct conflict with the local courts in the administration of ‘justice’. Any time such is the case, the local court officials are made a foolery. The question then is; why do we need the local courts, whose officials are recognized by the Government, when their decisions do not hold water whenever it conflicts with those of the chiefs’ courts (kangaroo court)? Let us retrospect a case between the Chairman of Local Court No.1 in Bombali and one Pa Kaprr Bana, a local chief. The matter involved a debt dispute between one John Koroma and a Mary Sesay; the former reported the case to the said local court to reclaim his money from the latter. No sooner had the case reached the Court than the chief, Pa Kaprr Bana, requested that the Court Chairman should transfer the case to his kangaroo court. The Chairman, for unexplained reasons, immediately did at the chief’s behest. The complainant was not happy with the transfer as he claimed that the said chief had an affair with the accused thus the likely of justice not being done in the matter; and that beside the said case was not within the jurisdiction of the said chief. The matter was heard with the ends of justice not been served.
Furthermore, whereas section 34(2) of the Local Court Act, 1963 states that the “functions of the judicial adviser shall include the advising of the local court in matters of law and organizations, the training of court personal and the exercise of the power of review …”, the same could not be said of kangaroo courts in the region. With no checks and balances put in place to address issues such as gross dereliction of duty, kangaroo courts have been to a business-like enterprise. Most of the chiefs that preside in these courts use them as a means to cater for their families and other relations. As such, they most often impose exorbitant fines on the poor, unsuspecting masses in order to meet their growing responsibilities. This is mostly the case when ‘strangers’, that is, people who are not descendants of the chiefdom where the case is being heard are involved. Where one of the parties is a ‘stranger’ and financially comfortable, exorbitant fines are deliberately imposed in order to exploit the wealthier ‘stranger’ client with the indigent indigene made not to pay the amount that has been imposed. The fines collected during such sittings are neither accounted for, nor are they used for the development of the chiefdom. The chief has unlimited control over how the money is spent; the bulk of which is expensed to cushion the hard economic realities faced by the overwhelming majority of people in this country. In addition, kangaroo court officials do not have opportunities for trainings in human rights and the rule of law, perhaps partly the reason for the appalling violations of human rights.
The rule of law and not the rule of man should prevail all over the country with the north being no exemption. Therefore, the issues highlighted in the above paragraphs need to be given the utmost attention for the consolidation of peace in particularly the northern region. The chiefs should be made to understand their roles in this modern-era of democratic governance. Judicial duties, they must be told, is purely the business of the constitutionally-established courts and not that of the chiefs. The Government should emphatically discourage the setting up of such courts with stringent measures to be taken against defaulters. Moreover, the number of local courts should be increased as where there is none, the people have no alternative but to go to a kangaroo court. Finally, the public also needs to be sensitized on the fact that ‘chief’s courts’/kangaroo courts have no jurisdiction to hear and determine any disputed questions of law. It is hoped that these measures, if implemented, will help entrenched the rule of law in the north and by extension consolidate the hard-earned peace in the region and the country at large.