The
Executive Director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, Solomon Sogbandi,
has said the term “chief” used
to replace “supreme” in
the 1991 Constitution does not reduce the powers of the president. He made this statement in an interview with Awoko on Wednesday, 23th November, 2016. Following the decision of the APC to withdraw
its signature from the final report of the Constitutional Review Committee.
Sogbandi,
who was a member of the Subcommittee on State Policy and Human Rights on the
CRC said, “The term ‘supreme executive powers of the
president’ in the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone was ambiguous. It is also
stated in Constitution that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land.”
He
asked, “If we are saying that the President should
have supreme executive authority and the Constitution is also supreme, in terms
of supremacy, which one is more supreme that the other?”
When
President Koroma launched the CRC two years back, he instructed the Committee
to “review constitutional ambiguity; clarify issues on our statutes; and be
clear on the governance processes.”
The Amnesty Sierra
Leone, Executive Director said based on examples from other Constitutions in
Africa, other titles were given to the powers of the president to avoid chaos.
“Section 53 deals with the executive powers meaning the President has
all power so the issue of removing supreme replacing with chief does not reduce
the powers of the president it remove arbitrariness”, Sogbandi stressed.
Another issue the CRC
examined was the problem of party membership, which lead to the sacking of
former Vice President, Sam Sumana. According to Sogbandi, having to be a party
member forces party loyalty before loyalty to the people who elected them. This
is not in the interest of the country.
Culled Awoko
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