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Barrister & Solicitor of the High Court of Sierra Leone, Ady Maculey has threatened to drag the current Chairman of the National Electoral Commission, Mohamed Konneh, to court for announcing dates to conduct bye-election in Constituency 005 and 073 where vacancies occurred less than a month but refused to conduct bye-election in Constituency 056 in 7 months.
The Former Anti-corruption commissioner, Criminal & Human Rights Litigation Advocate, stated on his twitter page that ”It’s time to take him to Court to do the right thing.
Lawyer Maculey believes that the NEC commissioner recent announcement is a misapprehension of the relevant legal provisions. ”You know, as I very well know, that immediately a candidate for an election is declared winner, until a Competent Court of law decides otherwise, he is the winner. The Paramount Chief elected cannot continue to be an MP”. he cited
Popular Human Right Lawyer Augustine Sengeh Marrah commented on Maculey’s reaction that accountability is key in governance. He believes that electoral processes & decisions should be open, inclusive and transparent as that’s the only way suspicions in our body politics can be eliminated.
However, in his response the NEC Boss Mohamed Kenewui Konneh stated that ”Conducting elections is what we do for living and we are always ready to doing it; but under the relevant legal provisions . We have not conducted the election because the said parliamentary seat is not vacant as claimed . The PC election in question, which the MP contested, was challenged by one of the contenders and the matter is still in court. The elected PC has not been given the Staff of office”
Lawyer Africanus Sesay believes that in simple terms the electorates have been deprived of a legitimate voice to represent their concerns in parliament. This in essence is both a constitutional and statutory violation.
