A Commissioner at the Governance Commission (GC), Ruth Jappah, disagrees with claims made that delays to get justice in Liberia can be ascribed to a weak justice system.
More Civil Society Organizations’ recommendations to the government and stakeholders in Liberia often ascribe delays to get justice and prolonged justice processes to a weak justice system, but Cllr. Jappah disagreed.
Representing the Governance Commission at a policy dialogue on the topic, “Violence against Women and girls”, the commissioner asserted that crafters of the law did not envision hasty justice but said what government envisages is ‘fairness’ for everyone.
In Madam Jappah’s argument to CSOs’ recommendations, she expressed, “We often say, our justice system is weak apparently because of what we saw but, to be frank, it is not weak because we are seeing the processes going slowly because it is about fairness.”
Adding, “In cases where someone can see a girl raped and the evidence seen cleared, that may not be as cleared to the other lawyers or to other parties in many cases; that person seemed cleared can sometimes be innocent.”
“There are processes to establish guilt or blamelessness of the person under the law; before that, it takes time. We cannot rush to get justice though they say justice delayed is justice denied, they did not also say, rush because you have to pass through procedures,” Cllr. Jappah intimated.
She unequivocally indicated that “Justice is not rush” because along the way someone’s right may be taken away from them because you rush in judgment.
According to the Governance Commission official, the court system is long and can delay because sometimes it isn’t easy to get witnesses.
“Worst of it, in Liberia, government does not protect its potential witnesses, and this is why the government mostly lose cases. Some of the cases are compromised because witnesses are not accounted for. You go to court every day to testify but nobody cares about you,” she stated.
She said Law reform is the bedrock of everything that happened in Liberia and “We do so as we ought to see lots happening in society when we have policies that will get us up there”.
“Without the laws that we can use to claim our rights, our rights will be meaningless. So when people are saying we got laws but justice not enforced, or be implemented and people are getting off the hook; we have to know that all is about justice and fairness and those are the reforms we Gov’t have made over the past years,” she noted.
Meanwhile, Cllr. Ruth Jappah said law reform makes it different from the past since some amendments were made; now women are no longer properties to spouses they now have certain statutory entitlements mainly in marriage.
“Now with the reform women can administer their husband’s properties and get portions. You cannot tell a woman to get out of your house no matter what or how you build it. These are things that law reforms do. In order to start claiming your rights you need the laws,” she stressed.
