PHOTO: Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe speaking in the Gbapolu Circuit Court
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
BOPOLU, Liberia- The President of the LiberiaN National Bar Association (LNBA), Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe says lack of integrity is adversely affecting Liberia.
The menace, which he said is found in both private and public sectors, has become a cancerous ailment that is eating up the fabric of Liberian society.
Cllr. Gongloe was speaking at the opening of the August 2021 Term of Court on Monday August 9, in Bopolu, northwestern Gbarpolu County.
He said interfering with the Judiciary, of the three branches of Government, is a felonious crime. He added that the independence of the judiciary must at all times be maintained.
But Cllr. Gongloe pointed out that as it stands, the courts or the judiciary are not independent.
He said the public does not pick and choose when it accuses a sector of corruption in that when a police is involved in a corrupt act, the public will definitely say, police are corrupt people, saying people should not be arrested based on perception.
Cllr. Gongloe, who was recently petitioned to contest the 2023 presidential election but has not formally consented, said people are only interested in jailing someone and that once that is done, they turn their back.
The LNBA President said the judges needing training as mentioned by Judge Kizeku, the training will have little integrity without integrity.
“The suspicion in the country and government is the lack of integrity because what we do is different from what is written,” Cllr. Gongloe added.
He wants law enforcement officers to be loyal to conscience if professional policing in Liberia must be promoted.
The Bar Association’s President used the occasion to highlight the need to allow the law to work as written, noting that from the days of President William Tubman up to present, the executive has always interfered with the judiciary.
He wants every case to be driven by evidence and not public sentiment, pressure or protest.
Law enforcement officers must guide against doing the wrong thing because of protest or pressure and in so doing act in error because in the end, such case may be dismissed on account of procedural error, Cllr. Gongloe stressed.
He reechoed the charge of the Gbarpolu County Circuit Court Judge that law enforcers must guide against sending cases to court without weighty evidence.