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Following the Tripartite Committee’s recommendations, Sierra Leoneans were promised a process of constitutional reform founded on national consensus. This reform was to be guided by the seminal work of the late Justice Cowan’s Constitutional Review Committee and strengthened by the subsequent Tripartite Committee recommendations, which arose from our collective effort to address recent electoral challenges.
It is therefore profoundly concerning to discover, buried within the proposed Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Bill, 2025, a clause that is entirely alien to these foundational documents: a provision for the automatic suspension of criminal trials against presidential candidates in the year preceding an election. Its presence raises an unavoidable question: who introduced this clause, and for whose specific benefit ?
This provision raises serious constitutional, moral, and democratic red flags.
First, let us be unequivocal: this clause is an estranged element. It finds no origin in the recommendations of the late Justice Cowan’s Committee, nor does it feature in the consensus-driven Tripartite Committee Report. Its sudden emergence in the draft bill legitimately invites suspicion regarding its provenance, intent, and intended beneficiary.
Constitutional reform must be rooted in transparent consensus and the national interes, not in political convenience or expediency.
The very premise, that the judicial process should be automatically suspended for a presidential candidate simply because an election is imminent, is deeply troubling. It establishes a dangerous principle: that political ambition can trump the course of justice. This directly undermines the foundational doctrine that all citizens are equal before the law, irrespective of their status or aspirations.
Constitutional amendments should serve to strengthen our democracy and institutions, not to shield individuals from legal accountability. Any provision that appears meticulously tailored to benefit a specific class of political actors, at the expense of judicial integrity, must be rigorously interrogated, firmly resisted, and, if necessary, rejected.
I therefore call upon Parliament, civil society, the international community, and all well-meaning Sierra Leoneans to scrutinize this clause with the utmost care. Our Constitution must never be transformed into a refuge for impunity.
The rule of law must remain supreme, before, during, and after elections.
