-Senators Cammany Wisseh and Daniel Nathan outraged over failure to respect laws
-Senate’s leadership suspends online chartrooms over information leakage
By Our Staff Writer
Locally referred to as the “House of elders”, the Liberian Senate now seems to be turning into a House where “lawlessness” seems to be the order of the day.
That according to two Senators—River Gee County Senator Commany B. Wisseh and Gbarpolu Senator Daniel Nathan, who on Tuesday insisted that the presiding Senator of Maryland County Dan Morias should not have gone ahead with holding plenary session because of a lack of quorum.
Both Senators, who appeared visibly annoyed, said after “unconstitutionally” impeaching and removing former Associate Justice Kabineh Ja’neh from office last Friday, the same trend of the disregard for rule of law was continuing on Tuesday.
According to them, because the disrespect shown by some of their fellow lawmakers for the law, the Liberian public were beginning to lose trust and faith in the Legislature. The two Senators asserted that the repeated and flagrant violations of the Liberian constitution and the Senate’s own rules must stop.
They argued that this was against the Senate rules and in fact the Tuesday’s session had on the agenda constitutional issues the upper House of the Legislature should have deliberated on.
Senator Wisseh later walked out of Tuesday’s session, accusing the body of illegally doing business.
“We saw the last time that lapses led us to removing from office an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; today, we do not even have a quorum, and you are taking a decision contrary to our own rules that say you must have half of the total membership of the senate to do any business,” the River Gee County Senator reminded his colleagues.
He said he was baffled that colleagues would choose to hold discussions on serious matters; some of which border on constitutional amendment in clear violation of the standing rules of the senate.
“You want to go ahead and debate them even when you do not have a quorum”, Sen. Wisseh said.
However, the Presiding Senator Morias, who is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, dismissed their claims.
He said close to ten absent Senators had sent in excuses, some of which were on his mobile phone. Therefore, they could not be considered absent.
“I think I need to educate whoever says that, I think they are not reading the rules”.
But he said he would not bring any of his colleagues to public disrepute, adding that he respects their views and holds them in high esteem.
The Senate in Liberia has suspended two chart rooms, citing leakage of information especially during proceedings leading to the impeachment of former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Kabineh Ja’neh.
Suspension of Senate online chartrooms
In another development, the online chartrooms, which were created to facilitate exchange of information among senators, has been suspended by the Senate’s leadership, the Presiding Senator at Tuesday’s session announced in the chambers.
Senator Morias announced that the chatrooms will remain suspended until regulatory measures are put in place to ensure proper management.
The decision, he pointed out, is in the interest of the senate, while acknowledging their own failure to put in place regulatory measures from the establishment of the chart rooms.
“We didn’t create guidelines for the usage of the chart rooms,” he told legislative reporters Tuesday at the Capitol.
The recent impeachment of former Associate Justice Ja’neh has bitterly divided the Senate, with some describing the move as gross violation of the constitution and a bad legal precedent.