By Precious D. Freeman
The office of the Ombudsman has lost the legal battle to the West African Examination Council (WAEC) at the Monrovia City Court.
It can be recalled that the head of the Ombudsman, Finley Kangar, on October 22, filed before the court a petition subpoena Duces Tecum against the head of WAEC Liberia.
The Ombudsman’s head request came from a case involving alleged leakages of the 2024 12 graders mathematics exam.
In his subpoena, Cllr Kangar prays the court to have WAEC Liberia bring forth all and any documents relating to the leakage of the mathematics exam, and the names of staff involved among others.
He also requested the court to have the institution bring before the court a document of the amount paid for the re-running of the 2024 mathematics exam.
Following the Ombudsman request, WAEC Liberia through their lawyers filed a four-count return, stating that article 16, of the convention establishing WAEC Liberia, the Ombudsman should contact the registrar of the council at the international office.
They added that the entire subpoena from Kanger is self-serving; as such Mr. Gbotoe will not produce any evidence against himself due to the fact that the office of the Ombudsman is seeking to investigate.
But the Monrovia city court Stipendiary magistrate in his ruling on Wednesday said the head of WAEC Liberia Dale Gbotoe is not an employee of the government of Liberia as per the code of conduct.
Section 12.2 of the code of conduct states, “The office of the ombudsman shall receive and investigate all complaints, in respect to the adherence to the code of conduct. In this case, where there is a determination of guilt and violation of the code of conduct by private and public and government employees, such violation shall be submitted by the Ombudsman to the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission or other relevant agencies of government. The Ombudsman office shall be responsible for collaborating with the three branches of government and civil society organizations to develop regulations for the code of conduct.”
Judge Barco therefore added that the respondent is an international staff, employed by the registrar of the West African Examination Council, as he enjoys diplomatic immunity from the local laws of the member country insofar as it relates to the code of conduct for which the authority of the office of the ombudsman does not extend.
Meanwhile, Judge Barco denied and set aside the petitioner’s request for subpoena Duces Tecum issued against the respondent WAEC, while the petitioner took an appeal and promised to make use of the status control before the reviewing court.
In an interview with the WAEC boss, he vowed to ensure that law and order is the center of the country’s testing body, stating that his office will not resist in fighting any act of corruption that might occur in the entity.
He said during the conduct of the 2024 exam the staff and his accomplices that were involved in the alleged cheating were investigated, charged and sent to court by the Liberia national police.
Following such a decision, the office of the ombudsman wrote requesting that it’s the office of the Ombudsman that should be conducting the investigation instead of WAEC Liberia or the LNP.
According to Mr. Dale Gbotoe, they informed Cllr Karnga that they are an international organization and incase of any complaint from the government of Liberia they should contact their international registry.
He further stated that they informed the head of the ombudsman that whatever document he was requesting had already been sent to the court for prosecution of those involved.
The head of the ombudsman office said the judge ruled based on his lack of understanding of the code of conduct and added that the authorities of WAEC Liberia have some inner motive for preventing him from having access to the requested documents.
According to him, there was no investigation conducted in the matter, contrary to what the WAEC authority informed the court of, stating that he would never stop in ensuring that the right things are done for the betterment of the rule of law.
