Lawyer Kowa’s objection on recusal of State Counsel upheld

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Justice Bankole Thompson has upheld the objection put forward by State Counsel Robert B. Kowa that person of interest (POI) Sylvia Olayinka Blyden ought not to be heard in respect of any application until she has purged herself from contempt. Blyden applied to the Commission that State Counsel Patrick L. Williams either recuse himself from the proceedings or be directed to recuse himself, reason being that she will be calling him as her witness as he was a staff of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and children’s Affairs during her time as Minister. “Williams is ofay with facts that I would want him to present to this Commission as a former staff” she said. State Counsel Kowa objected on the fact that Blyden in the Commission’s last hearing on the 4th September, 2019 was in contempt in the face of the court, in this case a tribunal in which he said she disobeyed the Judge’s orders publicly.

So supportive of the objection he relied on the case of Hadkinson v Hadkinson [1952] 2 All ER 567 –Somervell , Denning and Romer L.JJ. The said authority referenced read thus “…It is the plain and unqualified obligation of every person against, or in respect of whom, an order is made by a court of competent jurisdiction, to obey it unless and until that order is discharged. The uncompromising nature of this obligation is shown by the fact that it extends even to cases where the person affected by an order believes it to be irregular or even void. “A party who knows of an order, whether null and void, regular or irregular, cannot be permitted to disobey it. … It would be most dangerous to hold that the suitors, or their solicitors, could themselves judge whether an order was null and void – whether it was regular or irregular. That they should come to the court and not take upon themselves to determine such a question: Such being the nature of this obligation, two consequences will, in general, follow from its breach. The first is that anyone who disobeys an order of the court (and I am not now considering disobedience of orders relating merely to matters of procedure) is in contempt and may be punished by committal or attachment or otherwise. The second is that no application to the court by such a person will be entertained until he has purged himself of his contempt. This, Lawyer Kowa says is very applicable in that situation and that no application should be entertained until the person of interest purged herself of that contempt. He went further to add that “…if an order has been made in the exercise of the discretion of the court, and someone who is oppressed, or thinks himself oppressed, by that order, appeals, saying that the court has exercised its discretion wrongly, that person if he is in contempt cannot be heard to say anything of the kind until he has purged his contempt.” Lawyer Kowa said that these are very instructive reasons and it has been clearly stated that it is dangerous to allow a person who has disrespected the court, in this case the tribunal, to come before that tribunal and be heard on an application. So based on the reason advanced by Lawyer Kowa’s response to the said application and guided by the Rules of Practice of the High Court of the Republic of Sierra Leone and which the Commissioner of Inquiry (COI) is authorised to adapt, adopt and apply for the purposes of the discharge of its mandate and specific terms of reference under the Constitution of Sierra Leone Act No.6 of 1991 and also its founding instruments to wit Constitutional Instruments 65, of 2018 and other relevant and germane enactments, Justice Thompson ruled that the instant application is not properly before the tribunal and cannot therefore be legally entertained.

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