A Liberian proverb says the tolerance and the strength of a visionary leader's wisdom is validated not only by the success of his programs but also by his ability to act as the dump-pile upon which all refuse is thrown and yet which seems not to notice.

In other words, the leader must accept the bile and even the folly of the fraught and despondent citizen who must vent his anger as a hungry child would upon his mother.

The argument here is, 'Who has stood between God and man and asked to please be given the opportunity to take charge of the problems of the people?'

Observers agree that the proverb has a point in logic. But what they question, they say, is "What if that throws the leader's character, prestige, or even his reign in the balance?" Similar dilemma faces the Liberian nation: can, or should the Liberian president sue for damage?

The Analyst Staff Writer has been looking at a citizens' debate on just this question vis-à-vis President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's lawsuit against The New Broom newspaper.

The observers' "okay" nod that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's got just hours after she sued The New Broom has now morphed into a debate regarding the fight against impunity in light of constitutional privileges and restraints. The President prays a criminal court in Monrovia to grant her US $5.0 million in damages for libel, for scandalizing her character and tainting her reputation.

The President claims The New Broom's "malicious story" jeopardized her ability to effectively run the affairs of the country. While some say sue the President can and should as a way of fighting Liberia's ingrained culture of impunity that seems impervious to current efforts at behavioral, political, and legal reforms, others contend she cannot and should not sue for reasons of undue privilege before the law, political drawbacks, and moral ethics.

The President Can and Should Sue

In his comment on this question, Lee Wuanti a US-based Liberian scholar, said the question of whether the President of Liberia can and should sue for damage rests squarely with the Constitution of Liberia and not with what critics may think.

"Your beef should really be with the framers of the Liberian Constitution, albeit in hindsight," he said.

He said neither Article 61 of the Constitution which critics often use as basis for frowning on the President's decision to go to court, nor any other article, denies a sitting President the right to seek legal remedy in a court of law. "That a sitting 'President cannot sue' is an insertion by you only as a matter of expediency and not law," he said in response to an anti-legal stance article written byJ. K.K. Peah of LiberiaForum.com.

He said Article 61 may explicitly protect the President from lawsuits but argued that that blanket of protection would be lifted once the President becomes a private citizen again. "Then and only then can the President be sued. This is the law as clear as day, Peah," he Wuanti said.

Incidentally, Article 61 states: "The President shall be immune from any suits, actions or proceedings, judicial or otherwise, and from arrest, detention or other actions on account of any act done by him while President of Liberia pursuant to any provision of this Constitution or any other laws of the Republic. The President shall not, however, be immune from prosecution upon removal from office for the commission of any criminal act done while President."

Besides the fact that the article did not restrict the President from suing, Wuanti said, Article 11 of the same constitution makes the debate even simpler.

"With regard to Article 11 (c), the 'All' there includes the President as well as the journalist since they are both 'persons'. There is nothing explicit in this article that excludes the powerful (a sitting President) from being entitled to 'equal protection of the law'," Wuanti noted further.

He said based on these constitutional guarantees for the President to seek legal redress, he was not shocked to hear that the President of Liberia has sued a local newspaper for libel and damages.

"I see this as an event in the crucible of our emerging democracy, as if it were, for testing whether or not our rights and freedom can be upheld or protected. What better place to have this played out than in the courthouse?" he asked rhetorically. He said having the right to sue does not connote that the President is going to have an easy ride with the law as libel cases were delicate.

"The onus is on the plaintiff to prove malicious intent or falsehood on the part of the defendant. Also I think the President's legal team will have a hard time convincing the court that the journalist's story has gravely affected her ability to perform her duties. As it is to be expected in this case, just as in any libel case pursued by politician against the press, the President's lawyer has his work cut out for him," he revealed.

The larger question that this case raises, he said, was whether or not a suit of libel or slander by a sitting President against a journalist can have a chilling effect on press freedom in Liberia. "This is where my concern lies," the Liberian scholar said. But some say what Wuanti simply described in passing as "chilling effect" of the President's lawsuit on press freedom", critics think it should be the central issue of the debate.

The President Can't and Shouldn't Sue

"It came as a shock when Liberians learnt through the media that their leader and Africa's first female President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf filed a law suit against a local journalist and his news paper for publishing an article in its paper linking her to a 2 million dollars bribery scheme," said J. K-K.

Peah of the LiberiaForum.com in his September 24 article titled, "Since President Sirleaf Sued, Can the President Be Sued?" Describing the President's lawsuit as unprecedented, Peah said there was nowhere in recorded presidential history or democratic governance in Liberia or elsewhere that a sitting president originates a legal battle with a citizen or an institution.

He said the strangeness of the lawsuit raises the fundamental question of presidential immunity versus the right or possibility of the equality of the individual citizen and institution before the law rather than that the President has the right or does not have the right to sue.

In his view, the presidential immunity enjoyed by President Sirleaf would work to the disadvantage of the accused since the President was unlikely to appear in court herself to face her adversaries.

"Article 61, as we have seen put the nail on the coffin to President Sirleaf law suit. Under this article, the constitution protects the President from any suit for crime, felony, and or any behavior of any sort not in conformity required of a President while in office," Peah said.

He then wondered that if the President is shielded from prosecution of any sort while in office, how it would be possible for her to sue any citizen or institution for any act the she perceives as tantamount to disgust and warrants judicial review. "Jurisprudence and law established justice as equality of all regardless of who one is, if the President can not be sued while in office so is the same, the President too can not sue," he contended.

He said besides not leaving Article 61 to the interpretation and debate of lawyers and judges when dealing with a citizen and/or institution and the President before the law, it went further to explicitly protect the individual citizen and institution from being victim of undue and overbearing power, especially dealing with such power as in the case with the President and The New Broom newspaper and its publisher.

According to him it was the possibility of the unfettered application of the "all persons are equal and therefore entitled to equal protection of the law before law" provision of the Constitution of Liberia at Article 11(c) that was central to the current citizens' debate over presidential action.

"Article 11 (c) clearly shields The New Broom and its publisher from unduly and overbearing power as the President and the defendant are equal before the law, no one side can be given special advantage in the court of law in as much as the President is still in power and she can not be prosecuted so she too can not sue," he said.

He said if by the argument of articles 11(c) and 61 the President cannot be sued then it was difficult to comprehend how in a situation in which the defendants in the libel suit as filed by President can file a counter suit against her if their lawyers deemed it expedient to accord their client equal protection of the law.

The constitutional debate aside, he said, President Sirleaf's lawsuit did not serve her administration well since it raised the profile of the bribery allegation to a level at which a judicial inquiry could be instituted to probe into whether the President was involved in any wrongdoing.

"By that token, the President has openly shot herself in the foot. Her suit puts flesh on the allegation which as she has already done, warrants the allegation itself to be given legal remedies," he said.

The findings of the inquiry, which is he said could be conducted by the Justice Ministry and the Solicitor General, could be submitted to the National Legislature for possible impeachment proceedings - in case a wrongdoing has been discovered.

More than the merit of the allegation vis-à-vis its boomeranging against the President, Peah said, the filing of such lawsuit before the Criminal Court was a faux pas.

"The President criminal lawsuit against The New Broom and it's publisher in a criminal court is fruitless to begin with, because the criminal court is not a court of competent jurisdiction to handle a case of such kind," he revealed.

She said this was so because the President's lawsuit raises constitutional issues that have to be settled first in the Supreme Court of Liberia and not in the subordinate criminal court. "If this constitutional issue is not settled by the Supreme Court, the President can not file a suit, especially a criminal one as in the case of the suit against The New Broom and its publisher," he said.

Keeping the Presidency from the Gutter

Samuel Morgan, another US-based Liberian anti-lawsuit commentator, wondered whether the President was willing to risk the sanctity of her office and the ubiquitous national security alibi by allowing The New Broom to gather evidence through the subpoenaing of presidential aides and other officials of the Ministry of State.

Another issue akin to the President's lawsuit, he said, was the issue of compensation: who underwrites the President's legal defense since the law did not envision a situation in which she would become part to a legal brawl.

"Now if she wins her claim of US 5 million dollars, at whose expense? The Liberian Government will be paying her salary during the time of her giving her trial disposition and her testimony, will the government be compensated because a private lawsuit against a citizen is not included within the presidential duties or will she be double dipping the country? No matter what, we need to keep The Office of the President out of the gutter," Mr. Morgan said.