-But will Court respect House of Representatives’ mandate?
-As rift over impeachment of Justice Kabineh Ja’neh deepens
By Mark N. Mengonfia
What appears to be a looming constitutional crisis is seriously deepening between the House of Representatives and Liberia’s Supreme Court.
This is so because the two branches of the Liberian government have gotten into “supremacies contest” with neither side is willing to respect the other branch.
The 50th day sitting of the 54th session of the of the House of Representatives received a writ from the Full Bench of Supreme Court, requesting members of the House of Representatives to appear before it with its legal representation, the request which was over warningly turned down by that body.
When the request from the Liberian Supreme Court was read by the secretary of the Legislature, House Speaker Dr. Bhofal Chambers guarded members of that body on how to treat the request from the Court.
The Capitol Building in Monrovia
Chambers was heard saying that it will be repetitive for them to accept the request from the Supreme Court of Liberia.
He indicated that doing so, will mean that they as lawmakers will be undoing their Saturday’s decision which called on members of that body not to honor the invitation from the Court.
It was against that backdrop that Rep. Gray made a motion for the Supreme Court’s request for appearance on Wednesday, August 22, 2018 to be ignored.
House sets Rules for impeachment
Meanwhile, members of the House of Representatives have set out rules to govern the impeachment of President, Vice President, Members of the Supreme Court, Judges of the Subordinate Courts, and all civil officers to which impeachment may apply.
The Ad-Hoc committee setup by House Speaker Dr. Bhofal Chambers in its resolution setting the rules to govern impeachment indicated that the Committee shall summoned the President, Vice President Members of the Supreme Court, Judges of the Subordinate Courts, and all civil officers to show cause why he or she should not be impeached and to file his or her returns or answer to the Ad-Hoc committee of the House of Representatives within ten days following the insurance of the writ of summons.
In the drawn-out resolution for petition, members of the Ac-Hoc committee placed the name of Justice Kabineh Ja’Neh as though the instrument was only for the justice and not Liberians.
It was later corrected by some members of the House of Representatives who in their thinking it was unrealistic to have placed the name of Justice Ja’Neh within the resolution setting out the rules to govern impeachment.