In 24 hours, the Supreme Court of Liberia did what no appellate court in a common law jurisdiction is supposed to do: it reversed its own final judgment not on law, but on noise.
The Court's stunning recall on Friday, August 28, of its own unanimous opinion issued Thursday, August 27, in the landmark US$350,000 defamation case -- Wilmot Smith v. Ecobank Liberia Ltd., Yussif Kromah, Martin K. N. Kollie and Alex Williams -- is now facing its most damning challenge: the certified record of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Civil Law Court, Montserrado County.
Chief Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, speaking from the bench, called the US$50,000 damages -- each against activists Martin K.N. Kollie and Alex Williams -- an "inadvertent error", claiming they "were not parties to the case before the lower court, in the manner contemplated."
That claim collapses on the record.
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Certified returns from the Civil Law Court obtained by this paper show the Court's judgment against Kollie was anything but inadvertent. It chased him. Three times.
On October 16, October 23, and November 5, 2025, the Sheriff of Court filed returns of non est inventus -- defendant cannot be found for personal service -- against Martin Kollie, who resides in the United Kingdom and operates a daily Facebook Live broadcast platform. On each occasion, the presiding Judge Scheaplor R. Dunbar.
granted Plaintiff's prayer for resummon by publication.
The orders directed publication in a widely circulated Liberian daily, the News Newspaper and posting on the Court's bulletin, pursuant to Chapter 3 of the Liberian Civil Procedure Law on substituted service.
Based on those three publications, Plaintiff Wilmot Smith, through counsel, prayed that Co-defendant Martin K.N. Kollie be placed on Bare Denial -- the procedural consequence for a duly served defendant who refuses to appear -- and joined with Co-defendants Ecobank Liberia Limited and its Reconciliation Officer Yussif Kromah for trial.
That prayer was granted. The record shows only Alex Williams was granted a separate trial request. Kollie was not absent because he was not a party. He was absent because he boycotted a party status the law had already conferred on him.
What The Law Actually Says
Liberian law is unequivocal on this point. Civil Procedure Law, Title 1, Chapter 3, Section 3.5-3.8: When personal service cannot be effected after due diligence, the court may order service by publication. Upon proof of publication for the statutory period, service is deemed complete. The defendant is bound to answer within 21 days thereafter, failing which judgment by default or Bare Denial may be entered.
Publication IS service. It is not second-class service. It is the law's answer to evasion.
The Supreme Court knew this on Thursday. Its original opinion correctly cited vicarious liability and respondeat superior -- holding that "an employer can be held liable for an act of an employee even if not authorized" -- and found that Ecobank was grossly negligent in data governance when its officer Yussif Kromah leaked confidential LISGIS bank statements, which Williams received and transmitted to Kollie for broadcast on Spoon TV as a US$1.2M -- later inflated to US$1.7M -- theft allegation.
The same opinion made a factual finding of malice: that Kollie and Williams "republished the leaked statement with malice, transforming a legitimate public-interest question into a libelous campaign."
You cannot, as a matter of logic and law, find malice against a non-party. You cannot award damages, then 24 hours later say the person you found to have acted with malice was never before the court.
Three Fatal Faults -- Legally and Constitutionally
First, the Usurpation of Fact-Finding and Violation of Functus Officio-appellate jurisdiction is not inquisitorial. The lower court is the sole trier of fact on service. It saw the bailiff's returns, evaluated due diligence, and signed three publication orders. The Supreme Court is functus officio -- without further office -- once it renders a final judgment. It cannot informally recall, clarify, or amend that judgment suo motu because defendants post on Facebook that they are "surprised."
The only lawful remedies were a Petition for Re-argument under Supreme Court Rules, filed by the affected party, or a Bill of Review. Neither was filed. What the public witnessed was a bench clarification triggered by social media optics, a procedure unknown to Liberian law.
Second, the Creation of a Fugitive's Charter-this recall creates the most dangerous precedent in modern Liberian libel law: Boycott is now a defense.
If a defendant who lives abroad, maintains daily digital presence in Liberia via Facebook Live, and is the subject of three publication orders can have liability erased because he claims he was "never cited or informed," then every future defendant can defeat the courts by staying overseas and refusing to open an envelope.
The Court has rewarded contempt. Under this new logic, jurisdiction ends where the internet begins. That is not law. That is surrender.
Third, the Politicization of Finality-the timing is incurable. The clarification came less than 24 hours after the US$350,000 judgment generated "widespread public attention, particularly over the inclusion of Kollie and Williams" -- both popular anti-corruption activists.
The Civil Law Court did the hard, lawful, unpopular work: it respected due process, published three times, and proceeded.
The Supreme Court did the popular work: it reversed itself to avoid sanctioning popular figures.
As one Senior Counselor of the Supreme Court Bar, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of contempt, said, "The lower court respected the law -- you publish three times, you proceed. The Supreme Court respected the noise. That is not correction, that is capitulation. When the Supreme Court becomes afraid of Facebook Live, the rule of law goes offline."
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The core of the judgment survives: Ecobank Liberia remains liable for US$250,000 for breach of banker-customer confidentiality and gross negligence in data governance. That alone is a landmark for privacy rights in Liberia's banking sector.
But the moral and legal heart of the case has been exercised. The men the Supreme Court itself said weaponized that breach -- turning a confidential leak into a three-month "trial by Facebook Live" that Plaintiff Wilmot Smith testified humiliated him and his family -- now walk away, not on innocence, but on a technical fiction invented after judgment.
For Wilmot Smith, justice is half-done, while the price, for the country, is far higher than US$50,000. The Court has told every Liberian that there are two systems of justice: one for those who show up, and one for those loud enough to make the Court undo itself.
And it has told every lower court judge that no matter how meticulously you follow Chapter 3 on publication, the Supreme Court may declare your work an "error" the next day -- without a hearing, without a petition, without law.
