7 Comments
Much of what I have read in the new Criminal Procedure Act, are good for country.
But abolishing Jury Trial is not good for country and citizens and all and sundry.
Before going further, I must beg HE President Bio not to be tempted to sign the New CPA until the Abolishment of Jury Trial is removed from the text.
There are repercussions if Jury Trial is abolished which shall surely affect citizens in future and President Bio will not want to be judged by posterity to have signed into law something which could be used in future against the innocents.
What President Bio must know is that many of our judges are members Freemasonry Lodge and other secret societies.
Leaving those people on their own in cases of capital offences, could allow for the guilty to walk free and for the innocents to suffer for capital crimes they never committed.
Why the Jury System in the first place? For not allowing one person to decide the fate of accused persons whether for good or bad.
For a judge not to be the one person that caused the suffering of even the guilty.
In Jury Trials the judge sits as the judge of law and the jurors as the judges of fact.
If Jury Trial is abolished means a judge will now sit as judge and jury at the same time which could be totally unfair for both accused persons and the victims.
There have been many instances in this country where jurors defy the direction of judges to either acquit or discharge or to convict because those judges of fact knew in their minds that those directives were the wrong ones.
In the case of Inspector Newlove and other in which Inspector Newlove and another detective were accused of killing a man in their custody in Makeni, the trial judge then, in his summary, was directly telling the jurors to find the accused persons guilty but they came out with a ‘not guilty’ verdict because they knew in their minds that those two accused persons never killed the suspect who, according to court records, was mercilessly beaten by a mob when he was caught robbing a house.
To know that the judge then was biased, after the jurors then made their “not guilty” pronouncement, the judge sat for over five minutes looking up the sky before he uttered the following words: “You people are free today but you’re going to meet a greater judge than me Who will judge you”.
This means that if that judge was sitting alone without jurors he could have found those innocent men guilty and gleefully sentenced them to death.
The defence counsel then, late Titus Fewry did prove his case beyond all reasonable doubt that his clients were innocent and the jurors agreed with him.
Trial by Juror must remain in the CPA forever to save this country from wicked elements who will be using their authorities to bend the law and send the innocents to prison unfairly and allow the guilty to walk free because of connections.
Children will be raped by evil perverts but they will walk free because of bent judges and those children will be left to suffer everlasting trauma while their perpetrators will brag about their evils.
President Bio must not allow those advocating for the Abolishment of Jury Trial to leave an indelible stain on his name through the doings of other people in future.
Let Jury Trial remain for all capital offences.
There is always appeal as of right. If the independence of the Judiciary is guaranteed as in black and white, then the absence of the jury system will not be felt, but as it is I am also afraid. However, to advocate for it also presents its challenges,
as corruption and delay in Court proceedings is also tightly linked with the jury system.
Not really good
Having been a juror for many years in the UK, I support this move. Jury services in a country like ours is corrupt and delay a court proceedings. Many serious cases that rely on a jurors, can be bought by heavyweights and creat a lot of injustice.
The present of the jurors in a trial delay court proceedings and cause lot of adjournment.I support the motion of removing them
Please allow us the alternative to choose between the two systems. Presso, please do not sign it into law.
Mister most countries do not use juries at all.
The majority of common law jurisdictions in other countries like Netherlands, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Malaysia etc. have abolished jury trials on the grounds that juries are susceptible to bias, however, they still have very good trials in their court services.
South Africa have also abolished juries and country like Hong Kong, only use jury in a very limited number of cases. In the Caribbean island they use jurisdiction only for serious criminal cases. So how wrong will Sierra Leone be to abolish Jury service in our court system?
Laws are made to improve society, not to favor or punish any one group or individual. I don’t see how abolishing trial by jury helps improve a society. Unless there is some ulterior motive here. We were told pre-election that the PR system is good and is practiced in “many” jurisdictions. Post-election, did it benefit society or just a specific group?