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Liberia: Pearl Bull Responds to TRC Suspension
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The Inquirer (Monrovia)
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Morrison O.G. Sayon
Cllr. Pearl Brown-Bull, one of the Commissioners of the TRC has sharply reacted to her recent suspension by the Chairman of the TRC terming it as unilateral and without any justifiable reason.
Speaking to this paper from Voinjama City, Lofa County via mobile phone, the Liberian female lawyer said the decision taken by the Chairman of the TRC, Cllr. Jerome Verdier to suspend her from the commission is unilateral.
Cllr. Bull said claims that she is serving on the Public Procurement and Concession Commission (PPCC) untrue and that she has at no time breached the TRC Act, rules and procedure as alleged by the Chairman of the commission.
In the letter of suspension to Commissioner Bull dated April 11, 2008, Chairman Verdier noted that Commissioner Bull should disengage absolutely from all works, activities, representation and functions of the TRC until a subsequent decision is taken by the commission.
Chairman Verdier, in his letter said despite the TRC's overindulgence of Cllr. Bull, her breach of mandatory provisions of the TRC Act requiring full time commitment of commissioners, she had failed to comply with disclosure requirements which would have positioned her to deny or accept her request for exemption to continue in a second employment.
But in her response, Cllr. Bull clarified that at no time has she ever taken any assignment with the PPCC. She said the action by the Chairman of the TRC without the input of other commissioners of the TRC is unilateral.
According to her, Verdier is not clothed with the authority to suspend or dismiss any commissioner on the TRC as they were all commissioned by the President of Liberia.
Cllr. Bull is presently with the TRC in Voinjama City, Lofa County where the commission commenced hearing yesterday.
In a related development, Cllr. Bull has reacted to recent story in the New Democrat Newspaper that she rejected the ECOWAS Peace monitoring Group (ECOMOG). She said being one of the drafters of the Status of Forces Agreement between the government of Liberia and the peacekeepers does not in any way mean that she rejected the peacekeepers.
She said the Status of Forces Agreement between a country and a peacekeeper group is intended to define the actual role of the peacekeeping group in a sovereign nation. Cllr. Bull said in the case of Liberia, the signing of the document was mainly intended to implement item #3 of the final communiqué of the meeting on Liberia held in Banjul, The Gambia on August 22-September 1, 1990.
She said at the time the ECOWAS communiqué urged the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) to enter into a state of forces agreement with ECOWAS which would define the rights and privileges of ECOMOG in Liberia.
According to the astute female Liberian Lawyer, the document was in the best interest of Liberia as it resticted the peacekeepers from arresting civilians. She said the signing of the status of forces agreement came into effect when Cllr. Peter Bondo Jallah, a civilian was arrested by ECOMOG and detained at their base for nearly a year.
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Cllr. Bull then described the New Democrat story as misleading and that the author is not informed about what 'status of forces agreement' means.
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