The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has been robbed of justice by the highest court in the land. At least for the time being. Section 120/16 of the country’s constitution clearly states that “Every Court established under this Constitution shall deliver its decision in writing not later than three months after the conclusion of the evidence and final addresses or arguments of appeal, and furnish all parties to the cause or matter determined with duly authenticated copies of the decision on the date of the delivery thereof”. Now the Supreme Court has flouted that constitutional provision without a modicum of regret shown by the highest court of the land.
The case before the court was for an interpretation and subsequent repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law. I am told that it did not require weighing too much evidence on the matter as the arguments were clear and straightforward. The failure by the court therefore to give a ruling forgives anyone into assuming that the arguments may have weighed on the side of the journalists.
But while the court’s failure is bad, the law is even worse. A law that has been denounced by both the country’s two main political parties whenever they have been in the opposition has been used and abused by them whenever they have been in power. Passed by the Sierra Leone People’s Party in 1965 when they apparently wanted to muzzle journalists working for the All People’s Congress party-owned We Yone newspaper in opposition at the time, the APC shouted their uvula out in condemning it. It is said that the party vowed to repeal it if they came to power.
In 1967 the APC all but won the general elections. Barring the military coup that briefly denied it power, the party ruled for 24 years and enjoyed the libel law so much that they forgot they had ever promised to repeal. The Tablet newspaper journalists had a rough ride with the establishment. Other journalists were suppressed under the very law almost at will. The SLPP who had promulgated the Public Order Act were even believed to have promised a repeal of the criminal and seditious libel provisions if they returned to power. Reason: it was now being used against them.
Then the National Provisional Ruling Council military junta ousted the APC in 1992 and promised to right all the wrongs including amending the laws that oppressed the country’s journalists, an obvious reference to the same obnoxious criminal and seditious libel law. Like the civilians before them, they also used it, misused it and abused it. You can ask Dr Julius Spencer of the now self-proscribed New Breed newspaper. Journalists were harassed both under and above the law. So much so that I remember very clearly during an inter-party debate at Fourah Bay College in 1996 ahead of the presidential election, the SLPP representative assured a repeal of the libel law should they return to power.
A few months later those who propounded the terrible law, the SLPP, were back in power. And for the ensuing eleven years, while they enjoyed it journalists endured its wrath. You can ask Paul Kamara of For Di People newspaper. Talks and assurances of a repeal of the law did not see the light of day. Not for the first time, in the run up to the 2007 presidential and legislative elections, the leader of the then opposition APC party, Ernest Bai Koroma – a man very close to the press – said, not once that he would review the law if he became president; an obvious reference to repealing it. To achieve this he has an able lieutenant in the former President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo as his Minister of Information.
While we still await a review at the very least of the criminal and seditious libel law – repeal at the best – it is all too obvious that the reason successive governments have retained this law is because it covers them up. It is a law that is very good for thieves in public offices as well as for oppressive regimes that do not want to be challenged by the people. Simply put, it is not in tandem with free speech which is a fundamental human enshrined in our constitution. Successive governments and their cronies have only succeeded in a vicious scare-mongering tactic designed only when they are in office. They have rung it in the minds and ears of a gullible public by harping on the notion it breeds reckless journalism. What nonsense! Why are most other provisions of the Public Order Act– Part 5 of which criminalises libel – not used save for the issuance of a police clearance for street protests and journalists challenging governments? Even a child born yesterday can guess the reason for that.
Under the criminal and seditious libel law, even a farmer who complains publicly about the high cost of fertilizers or tools can be imprisoned for “inciting public dislike against the government”. A poet who questions the use of aid money in a poem can also be imprisoned alongside their publisher for “tarnishing the image of the government”. A journalist who writes an article or broadcasts a story challenging the disappearance of project money that might have been stolen or converted by a government minister or the president can be jailed for “bringing about disaffection against the president or the government”. In fact, says Fayia Sellu, a colleague who now lives in the United States, “The greater the truth the greater the libel”. Balderdash! If this is not an obnoxious law then let the practice of a premature baby being taken to the forest for death be reintroduced for it is no more barbaric or primitive or obnoxious.
Almost ten years since the Independent Media Commission was set up as a first step towards repealing this very bad law, steps must be tangibly taken now to expunge it. Let the government express willingness to do so and we will discuss the modus. That will fit perfectly with President Koroma’s avowed commitment for an Open Government Initiative. By the way why is that OGI office not saying anything about this or the related Freedom of Information Act? How serious!
In the interest of those tax payers in America and Europe whose hard-earned earnings are being pumped into our country as aid their monies can only be better accounted for with a repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law and the promulgation of the Freedom of Information Law. For as long as things remain the way they are, public officials will continue getting rich, tax payers’ monies continue to plummet in a bottomless pit and the masses suffer in penury. Europe and America owe it to free speech and to their taxpayers to bring pressure to bear for a repeal of this very anti-people law known as Criminal and Seditious Libel.
By Umaru Fofana