The governing party in Sierra Leone, SLPP, is in the spotlight on the country’s deep and divided politics after it has recently announced moves on reviewing the national constitution.
The latest Constitution of Sierra Leone was adopted in 1991 and it went through an incomplete reform process under the ex-president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, starting from 2007 when he took over from ex-President Ahmad Tejan Kabba.
Sierra Leone’s 1991 constitution is a written one and so it makes it complex to be reformed overnight like other countries’ flexible countries. But, nonetheless, the review has taken wasted number of years that continues to eat on State resources and taxpayers’ money. The review on the country’s constitution has long overdue.
The good thing though was that ex-president Koroma of the All People’s Congress (APC), the previous party heading government, had expressed profound commitment in his later years to enable a new product of a reviewed constitution that makes abundant changes on the 1991 old constitution, to be made public to Sierra Leoneans.
There were lots of interests shown by CSOs, international community, journalists, NGOs, religious leaders, humanitarian and charitable based organizations, etc, during Sierra Leone’s constitutional review process.
Many seminars, workshops and university engagements were done, attracting legal, media, peace and conflict, political science, sociology, philosophy, library and archives, and history and main stream arts students in Sierra Leone to be able to add their voices on the country’s constitutional review.
In 2007, Fourah College, University of Sierra Leone, College of Medicines and Allied Health Sciences, Institute of Public Administration and Management, University of Makeni, Milton Margai College, etc were met to allow students and lecturers to make their meaningful inputs on the constitution review.
Religious leaders were known to have put a strong case against reviewers of the constitution on many religious aspects that threatened their faith.
One prominent example of a religious deviance against Koroma’s government was the aftermath of a very controversial bill on abortion for which religious leaders stood down on its passage in the country in 2015.
Lots of deliberations were done by many interests groups in the country.
A legal consultant and chairman of Sierra Leone’s Constitutional Review Committee, Late Justice Edmond Cowan, was able to finally present the White Paper to government, and copies of new books containing the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone and Dr. Peter L. Tucker Commission Report capturing some of on the grey areas on the constitution.
He was able to compile both the 1991 Constitution and Dr. Peter L. Tucker’s report in a single copy before power changed hands in 2018.
Since the tedious work on Sierra Leone’s constitutional review had started wayback in 2007 followed by a 2008 Constitution Review Committee report, which was set to look at critically by the public before it is being added to the 1991 Constitution, giving it a new outlook and flavor to match current economic, social, political trends in the world, however; the review is expected to have been finished long ago.
Though the review on the constitution did not complete under the Koroma’s era, but it’s predicted by many people for the document to be done at the early stages of President Julius Maada Bio while in governance.
Many critics of President Bio say his government had wasted time by passing into law many bills that seek their interests.
SLPP’s government had never made enough effort to further review and make public the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone, which was under a final review stage during the past administration of APC headed by ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Many eyebrows have been raised by legal luminaries or lawyers on government’s attempt for a “foul play” against the opposition, APC.
Since APC members have boycotted parliament over concerns on June 24 elections rigging by the government, it is thought that the sitting government might want to capitalize on that opportunity on their side to speedy up a review process that could bring into effect provisions in the constitution that favour them mostly.
One aspect in the constitution that many legal analysts fear is the ‘tenure of office’ of the president.
Will President Bio doing this by manipulating the constitution to allow him to stay in power than the number of years the constitution has mandated?
This has remained the popular question asked by some legal persons in the country over government’s earlier calls to start a review on the 1991 constitution of the Republic of Sierra Leone.