Chambers Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay has declined to issue the Writ of Certiorari prayed for by government lawyers.
According to state lawyers, even though the justice admitted that there was an error in the bond proffered by defendant Samuel Tweah, he ordered them to proceed with the matter at the soonest possible time.
It can be recalled on December 3, 2024, the Justice-in-Chamber, Associate Justice Gbeisay issued a stay order on the proceeding which should have commenced on December 4, 2024, after state lawyers filed a Writ of Certiorari against Judge Blamo A. Dixon along with the defendant Tweah and the four co-defendants.
The Justice in Chambers stay order reads; “By directive of his Honor, Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, Associate Justice presiding in Chambers, you are hereby cited to a conference with his Honor on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, at the hour of 10:00 am in connection with the above-captioned case. Meanwhile, you are hereby ordered to stay all further proceedings and or actions in this matter pending the outcome of the conference.”
However, defendant Tweah and co-defendant were expected to be arraigned in open court on December 4, 2024, when the prosecutors ran to the Supreme Court on December 3, 2024, to pray for the Writ of Certiorari.
In a nine-count petition Writ of Certiorari, the government lawyers pleaded that 1st respondent (Judge Blamo Dixon) manifested bias when he granted bail to 2nd respondent (Samuel D. Tweah) on personal recognizance although the defendant Tweah didn’t make an application thereof and the surety agreed it was evident that the criminal appearance bonds as filed by the 2nd respondent was defective and did not meet the requirement of law.
A Writ of Certiorari is a legal document that allows a higher court to review a lower court’s decision.
According to the court records, the 2nd respondent is an indictee accused of the commission of the crimes of Economic sabotage, misuse of public money and or records, illegal disbursement of public money, theft of property, criminal facilitation and criminal conspiracy by the Republic of Liberia through the Ministry of Justice.
Count three of the prosecution’s petition stated that the 2nd respondent, individually filed various bonds using properties that did not meet the statutory requirements.
The petitioner, in keeping with the law, filed an exception to the validity of each of the various property bonds that were filed by the 2nd respondent/ defendant.
That on the scheduled day for the hearing of the justification of the bonds filed for and on behalf of the 2nd respondent/ defendant after representation of the parties was announced, 2nd respondent surety was sworn and put on the witness stand where he testified on direct examination that the properties he proffered into bonds for the movants/ defendants were given to him by the owners of said properties to apply them for bond as he may deem fit, as has applied for the surety for the second respondent/ defendant.
He testified further that the monetary value inscribed in the various title deeds of the proffered bonds were genuine and authentic in fact and law; emphasizing that the Government of Liberia was aware of their existence using the probation registration and tax payments done for the properties to LRA.
Court records further averred that notwithstanding, the surety confirming that two of the properties used as bonds have the same property identification number (an anomaly) and that the properties were tax delinquent or were indebted to the Government of Liberia, thereby creating tax-lien on the bonds raised by petitioner which became glaring and conspicuous; and thereupon the bond was rendered unworthy to stand as surety in these criminal proceedings bias and ground for petitioner’s petition for the issuance of the writ of certiorari.
After the petitioner cross-examined the 2nd respondent’s surety, the 1st respondent of his own accord, ordered the clerk of court to read in open court, a communication from LRA that was issued as a result of petitioner’s request for LRA to verify the surety’s tax payment for the properties proffered as bond for second respondents/ defendants.
After the reading, the 1st respondent used the same letter to cross the surety as to the validity of the asserted qualms raised in the said letter to which the surety argued of not being served with the letter notwithstanding, the service of the said letter on the 2nd respondent’s counsels on which basis movants moved the court to justify the bond without care about the tax-lien on the properties as detailed in LRA communication.
The 1st respondent without regard to his duty of cool neutrality as referee, granted the 2nd respondent’s motion to justify amidst a litany of defects on the individual and collective bonds of the 2nd respondents another factual and legal reason for this petition for the writ of certiorari to be issued against first and second respondents in the name of justice and fair play.
In the report of the communication of the Liberia Revenue Authority that some of the properties proffered as bonds were not in the system of the Government of Liberia, the rest had very significant unpaid taxes accessed against them, the 1st respondent must testify to the authenticity and veracity of its communications regarding the properties valuation bond presented by the second respondents, a duty he ignored and failed to exercise.
Following arguments and counterarguments, the judge in person of the 1st respondent ruled that the movants were entitled to bond even though they failed to proffer the proper and adequate bond they failed to make sufficient.
This is in complete breach of the law controlling and demanding the proffering of proper and adequate bond for a criminal defendant in this jurisprudence, hence, the petitioner’s petition for a Writ of Certiorari for the judicious determination of the case at bar.
The petitioner respectfully prayed the court for the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari against the 1st respondent for short-landing the bonds’ justification process by pre-maturely accepting the 2nd respondent’s bond to be sufficient in the wake of its insufficiency and grants unto the petitioner all and singular the relief your Honor may deem just, legal and equitable in the premise.
