Irate Youths to Attack Sluggish Court
Angry Sierra Leoneans youths at the Central Law Court in the Capital Freetown on Wednesday 22 September vowed to attack the judiciary in a mass demonstration to register their dissatisfaction on the slow and dawdling pace at which trials are carried out in the courts, saying in one throng that “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”.
“We have our brothers and sisters who have been caught and detained for months now and others for years without a conclusive end to their trials; this ugly dispensation must stop as the law is supposed to be there for the citizenry and not against it” a self acclaimed spokesman James Conteh told Sierra Express at the scene of the incidence.
A man who has lodged a land case with the court for three years now complained that coming to the law for help in “Sierra Leonean courts is a waste of time for it’s only the wealthy that make use of our law, the law for the ordinary citizen is out of the question” the disgruntled Alimany Bangura stated despondently.
Musa Sesay who has a case in the court has been attending court sessions for three months now without the rich complainant showing up; he blamed the Attorney General and the Chief Justice who he said are not working in the interest of the poor man and that their work is not in line with the President’s agenda for change. I think the judiciary needs much overhaul if what is expected of it could follow through.
Police officers prosecuting matters at the Magistrate’s Courts extort monies from complainants whose cases must be called for hearing and according to sources close to the Magistrate courts in Freetown, the police officers do so in connivance with court clerks who later grease the palms of their bosses in the judiciary.
When asked if such an act is real, and angry young man blasted ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t know about these ugly acts by police officers and those courts clerk here in the court; ever thing they do is money, if you don’t have the money your case eats the dust.”
Earlier, the Public Relations Officer of the Sierra Prisons, Alhaji Jimmy, told Sierra Express Media that the central prisons in Freetown are over crowded with unheard cases of inmates; a situation he said that has been the case for long time.
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