PHOTO: Here is the Owens Grove Magisterial Court
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
GRAND BASSA COUNTY, Liberia- The situation facing the Magisterial Court in Owens Grove needs to the given urgent attention.
Owens Grove is in District #1, the first major town/city when entering the southern county of Grand Bassa when leaving the nation’s capital, Monrovia.
Although the Judiciary branch of government has made some strides to improve courts around the country, more work is yet to be done to improve many others, including the Owens Groove magisterial court, both infrastructurally and otherwise.
Similar conditions reportedly exist in other counties. For example, the Kilipo Magisterial Court in River Gee County is operating from the private living room of a magistrate.
This court is being paralyzed with the absence of a Bailiff. Neither does this court has clerk nor typewriters for any staffer to prepare document nor vehicle, motorbike and stationaries, said Magistrate Abraham R. Mitchell.
Citing the constraints faced by the magisterial courts, the Edina Magistrate, who is the spokesman for the National Trial Judges Association, said his court doesn’t have any police station nearby that they can intervene whenever there is violent situations.
Magistrate Mitchell made the revelation when he responded the Judge’s Charge during the opening of the August term of the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Grand Bassa County’s capital, Buchanan early this week.
Magistrate Mitchell spoke of the appalling condition under which the Edina court was operating under, with no security, especially when Liberia is in a very tense electoral process.
“I and my one bailiff ran out of my court when some citizens who were aggrieved came at the court with knives and scissors on their sides to harm us and to call backup from Buchanan, it is challenging due to bad road conditions.
“I’m worried now how to handle election cases when it comes before with the lack of security,” Magistrate Mitchell stated.
He told the audience that the structures rural courts are operating from doesn’t represent the Judiciary, but in the midst of those constraints, he said magistrates are doing their jobs.
Meanwhile, Magistrate Mitchell has appealed to the authorities of Grand Bassa County to assist in whatever ways to address some of the challenges, even though he has written reports on their numerous challenges to the National Trial Judges Association and onward to the Judiciary.