D. Sonpon Weah
21 August 2008
More than of half of the 30-member House of Senate voted, late last week, to suspend Senate President Pro-Tempore, Isaac Nyenabo, on various charges including betrayal of trust manifested by administrative inadequacies, lapses, and gaps".
Subsequently, Tuesday this week, the Senate moved to replace him with Senator Lahai Lassanah of Bomi County rumored to be the most vocal petitioner against Nyenabo.
But the Supreme Court of Liberia has issued a prohibition against the Senate's action, in the view of many, reopening the George Dweh-NTLA and Edwin Snowe-House of Representatives debacle. Now, the question they are asking is, "Is Capitol Hill back to square one of Legislature-Judiciary power drill?"
With Reporter D. Sonpon Weah, The Analyst Staff Writer, reports.
Supreme Court Justice in Chambers, Cllr. Jamesetta Howard-Wolokolie, has mandated the Plenary of the Liberian Senate to stay all actions regarding the suspension and replacement of Senate President Pro-Tempore, Senator Isaac Nyenabo, pending a consultative meeting with the high court.
The Chamber Justice has scheduled the consultative meeting with a selective group of senators for Monday, September 1, 2008 in a citation issued as the result of a writ of prohibition sought from the high court by earlier by Senator Nyenabo and the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL) through its Acting Chairman, J. Hodo Merriam.
The NDPL and the former Senate President Pro-Tempore, who observers say is currently treading the swift political waters, reportedly filed for prohibition a day after the Senate Plenary elected Bong County Senator, Lahai Lassanah, to act in his stead while he serves the 6-month suspension term.
They sought the high court's prohibition, according to reports, against the backdrop that the plenary acted against the Constitution of Liberia, the Senate's own internal rules, and public outcry against Senator Nyenabo's removal from the top senate post.
The Analyst though could not confirm the senate rules or constitutional provision that is the basis for the prohibition.
The August 20, 2008 citation, which was addressed to Senator Daniel F. Neetahn of the Liberian Senate, mandated the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Martha G. Bryant, to ensure those concerned were sufficiently informed of the meeting.
Those cited for the meeting are senators Abel Momolu Massalay, Lanai Lassana, and Jewel Howard Taylor.
Others are senators Gbezohngar Findley, Adolphus Dolo, Prince Y. Johnson, Mobutu Nyenpan, Daniel F. Neetahn, and their legal counsels, amongst others.
It is not clear why these senators were selected for the consultative conference, but according to the high court's citation, they are expected to justify legally, or according to Senate Rules and perhaps constitutionally, why Nyenabo should remain suspended and in fact why he should be replaced by an acting president pro-tempore.
Prior to the election that brought Bomi County Senator Lahai Lassanah to the now hotly contested post, Maryland County Junior Senator, Gloria Scout, questioned through an exception note she addressed to the Senate Plenary and the President of Liberian Senate, Vice President Joseph Boakai, the legality and propriety of unseating the Senate President Pro-Tempore in a by-election.
"In my considered view and opinion, it will be not only unlawful and illegal to elect an Acting Pro-Tempore, but that such an act will also bring into disrepute and ridicule the credibility and image of the Honorable Liberian Senate of the 52nd Legislature of the Republic of Liberia", said the former Chief Justice of Liberia in the note dated August 19, 2008.
She contended that the position of President Pro-Tempore was a constitutional position and that there were constitutional provisions, laws and rules of the Liberian Senate that govern this it.
While the Latin phrase "pro tempore" means temporary, she noted, the rules of the Senate, as anchored by the Constitution of Liberia, clearly assigned to the position a tenure term and a process of succession.
"The Liberian Senate took a vote which resulted into the suspension of the pro tempore. In my view, a suspension is an enforced temporary incapacitation and there is no precedence in our Common Law jurisdiction where an election is held to fill a temporary vacancy created by a temporary incapacitation," the veteran legal practitioner further told her Senate colleagues.
She said even though it was indisputable that the National Legislature was widely considered a house of politics where number determines the outcome of legislative impasse, senators were under sworn duty to play the game of politics and exercise their votes with due regards for established laws and precedence.
This, she said, should not only be within the republic but also within the Common Law jurisdiction adopted by Liberia. "By doing anything without regards for the foregoing, we will not only bring this institution to disrepute, but we will also trivialize our votes, functions and works," she emphasized.
The former chief justice then warned her colleagues of the dangerously unfolding legislative trend on Capitol Hill in which many legislators were unsuspectingly giving in to the magic of majority rule and paying little or no attention to the laws of Liberia.
"And indeed we have done any and everything outside of the law because the majority said so," she said
She gave no examples of actions the Senate took outside the law, but the Maryland County senator said the sidelining of the law was undermining the citizen's confidence in the governance system and that these discouraged Liberians were seeking citizenship in other countries.
She said there was no question that mistakes were made in a number of Senate deliberations in the past and that it was unthinkable that the Upper House would continue down that road.
"If we do proceed to elect an acting Pro Tempore for a short period of five months, the signal or impression we will sent is that we have no intention of doing things right in the Liberian Senate and our expression of grievances were not done in good faith but just to further justify the continue down-sliding of the Liberian Senate," she said.
Senator Scott then implored the senators to do the right thing by reconsidering their decision to elect an acting Pro Tempore because the decision was "wrong and has no basis in law or precedence".
"My experience over the years has taught me that when you are role-model or someone the community has due regards and respect for, that creates the duty and obligations on you to conduct yourself in your office or in private in such a way that you will give direction, counsel and hope to people; by this I mean you will contribute to the respect of rule of law, procedures, processes, and the restoration of values and norms which will engender a stable and ordered society," she said.
She said it was incumbent upon the Senate, for the reasons she state, to return to the spirit and intent of the standing rules of the Liberian Senate and the laws of Liberia. Incidentally, the senator's caution fell on deaf ears - the by-election went ahead, given a push by 20 out of the 30-member Upper House - a strong case of the rule of the majority.
While no one doubts that the high court's writ of prohibition will give Senator Nyenabo a thrust as he tread the waters, observers say, the stay order is unlikely to reverse the action taken by the Senate Plenary.
They said the transitional NTLA's successful suspension and removal from office of Speaker George Dweh and the successful bullying of former House Speaker Edwin Snow to his resignation reminded them that the high court's prohibition was unlikely to bring to Grand Gedeh senator the respite he is seeking.
They recalled that in both cases the Supreme Court, though convinced of its role as the final arbiter of legal disputes within the republic and armed with the proper ammunition to do so, failed to reverse the decision made by both the transitional and elected legislatures.
Then, as it is likely to be now, they say, the high court may get embroiled in the power drill and in the issue of trial jurisdiction, analysts say, thereby bringing the Capitol Hill once again back to square one.
This is not, analysts say, because the Supreme Court is weak, but that because it is prevented from bringing its weight to bear by the constitutional separation of powers and the constitutional designation of the Legislature as the first branch of government imbued with the authority to make its own internal rules though not in violation of the Constitution and other laws of Liberia.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Unfortunately, the Constitution is silent on how the leadership of the Senate should be removed from office, let alone to talk about suspension and temporary leadership, besides saying that the leadership may be removed by a two-thirds majority vote.
Notes Article 47: "The Senate shall elect once every six years a President Pro Tempore who shall preside in the absence of the President of the Senate, and such shall [elect] officers as shall ensure the proper functioning of the Senate.
The President Pro Tempore and other officers so elected may be removed from office for cause by resolution of a two-theirs majority of the members of the Senate."
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