While The House Of Representatives’ Functions Currently On Hold
FLASHBACK: Images of citizens’ protest demanding respect for the rule of law and mysterious fire that gutted the Joint Chambers at Liberia’s Capitol Building back in December 2024
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
TEMPLE OF JUSTICE, Monrovia- The Supreme Court of Liberia has put on its docket the “majority bloc” speaker petition for re-argument, days after its ruling into the amended Bill of Information, which affirmed that Cllr. Jonathan Fonati Koffa is the legitimate Speaker of the House of Representatives.
This comes as a senior member of Koffa’s “minority bloc” and rule of law caucus, Nimba County District # 7 Representative Musa Bility on Thursday, May 1, 2025 disclosed that Speaker Koffa has decided to hand in his resignation on May 12 this year.
Rep. Bility told the local OK FM live phone-in talk show that Koffa’s decision to resign is contained in a minority bloc’s proposal given to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a move that will subsequently pave the way the holding of election for Speaker.
The House leadership feud has lasted for close to six months now and in its wake, the Joint Chambers of the Legislature at the Capitol Building was mysteriously gutted by fire, something that is estimated to cost the government close to US$2 million dollars to rehabilitate. Big Fire Engulfing The Seat Of Liberia’s Legislature Follows Tuesday’s Bloody Street Protest – News Public Trust
At the same time, the functions of the House of Representatives are currently on hold pending outcome of the Koon’s “majority bloc” re-argument case now before the high court. All justices of the Supreme Court are said to have received their copies of the petition filed by Representative Richard Nagbe Koon on April 25,2025.
(L-R) R) “Minority bloc” Speaker Richard Koon and embattled House Speaker, Cllr. Fonati Koffa
Rule 9, Part 1 of the Supreme Court Revised rules of court states that for a good cause shown to the court by the petition, a re-argument of a cause may be allowed only once, when some palpable substantial mistake is made by inadvertently overlooking some facts or point of the law.
Part 2 says, a re-argument shall be presented within three days after the filing of the opinion unless in cases of special leave granted by the court en banc upon application.
Part 3 says: contents of petition, the petition shall contain a brief and a distinct statement of the grounds upon which it is based and shall not be heard unless a justice concurring in the judgment order it. The moving party shall serve a copy thereof upon the adverse party as provided by rules relating to motions.
Part 4 further explains that where a concurring justice has ordered the re-hearing, the cause shall be re-docketed for the examination and determination of facts or points of law allegedly overlooked in the original judgment the court en banc.
On Friday April 26,2025, the House of Representatives Majority Bloc leadership headed by Rep. Koon filed a petition for re-argument before the full Bench of the Supreme Court, after the same court ruled declaring he and his colleagues action unconstitutional.
In a 29 Counts petition, Petitioners in this Petition for Re-Argument proceeding (Respondent in the Bill of Information proceeding), beg leave of Your Honor to have the above-entitled Bill of Information proceeding re-docketed and a new hearing conducted, and for legal and factual reasons showeth the following, to wit:
The petitioner cited Rule IX, Part 1 of the Supreme Court Rules provides that for good cause shown to the Supreme Court by petition, a re-argument of a cause may be allowed once when some palpable substantial mistake is made by inadvertently overlooking some fact or point of law.
According to the petition for re-argument, In the amended Bill of Information proceeding, Petitioners submit that this Honorable Court overlooked and did not consider certain facts and committed some palpable substantial mistakes of law.
The petitioner stated that had these facts been taken into consideration and hadn’t these palpable mistakes of law made, this Honorable Court would not have rendered the Judgment: “… any sitting or action of the ‘Majority Bloc’ (respondents) to the exclusion of Speaker J. Fonati Koffa, the duly elected presiding Officer of the House of Representatives, while he is present and available to preside is unconstitutional and without the pale of the law”, And Petitioners say that for these reasons, a re-argument of the Bill of Information proceeding should be allowed so that these facts and laws may be taken into consideration; and Petitioners so pray.
The Petitioners further accused the High Coirt Court that of wrongfully faileing to take into account the undisputed fact that when in August, 2024 Petitioners attempted to use the hall at which Plenary of the House of Representatives regularly sat, it was some of the Respondents, especially Hon. Marvin Cole, who locked the entrance to that door and used thugs to force Petitioners to use the Joint Chambers of the Legislature to decide how to proceed with the management of the complaint filed against Hon. J. Fonati Koffa by some of the Informants, accusing him of corruption, conflict of interest and mismanagement of the affairs of the House of Representatives, which are in violation of Article 90 of the Constitution and Rules 44 and 45 of the Standing Rules of the House of Representatives.
That is why when Respondents, as Petitioners for the Writ of Prohibition, first asked the Chamber Justice to restrain and prohibit Informants, as Respondents, from holding meetings in the Joint Chambers to decide how to manage the aforesaid complaint against Hon. Koffa, the Chamber Justice refused to issue the Alternative Writ, as the power to remove Hon. Koffa from the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives is a power vested in the House of Representatives and can be done by a Resolution of two-thirds (%) of the members of the House of Representatives.
Majority bloc through their legal counsels Cllr. H. Varney Sherman and Cllr. Albert Sim said, the Justices didn’t acknowledge this undisputed fact and law when considering and passing on the Bill of Information proceeding.
“Your Honors also inadvertently found that there were parallel meetings of the House of Representatives even though Respondents herein, as Petitioners therein, conceded in the matter entitled IN RE: THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SEVERAL ACTIONS TAKEN BY CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES” (hereinafter the “Constitutionality Case”). out of which the Information proceeding grows, that Speaker Koffa never convened any sitting or meeting of the House of Representatives as he was unable to obtain a quorum (minimum 37 of the 73 members of the House of Representatives) because the majority of the members of the House of Representatives (Respondent in the aforesaid Constitutionality matter, also as Petitioners herein) had resolved that they will not sit under the gavel of Hon. Koffa until the complaint against him was investigated and he was exonerated from the offenses complained off.
Narrating further, The Petitioners submit that it is elementary that an accused person shall not preside over a proceeding to investigate accusations against him/her. Had Your Honors considered this basic fact of this matter, Your Honors would not have ruled in the Information proceeding as Your Honors did.
Majority bloc assumed that the justices also ignored the fact that official transaction of the business of the House of Representatives did not resume until after Hon. Thomas Fallah, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, joined Informants herein (as Respondent in the Constitutionality case) and, he being the Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives while Hon. Koffa was away from Liberia, chaired the assembly of Informants (Respondents in the Constitutionality Case) and the first substantive agenda item was the reading of the complaint against Hon. Koffa and the order for an investigation to be conducted into that complaint.
Again, Informants submit that Your Honors inadvertently erred by finding that parallel meetings of the House of Representatives were being conducted when Hon. Koffa had no quorum to conduct any meeting or sitting of the House of Representatives.
That Your Honors also inadvertently erred by holding that there is an official chamber of the House of Representatives for the transaction of the business of the House of Representatives.
The requirement of law is that both Houses of the Legislature shall convene in Monrovia, the Capital of the Republic of Liberia.
Legislative Law, Section 3. There is no law or rule of the House of Representatives, which designates a building or room at which the House of Representatives shall meet; and as a matter of fact, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the House of Representatives regularly met in the Joint Chambers of the Legislature in order to have sufficient space between its members when convened.
So, Your Honors inadvertently erred by assuming that by the meeting of Informants in a certain room at the House of Representatives, other than the room designated by Your Honors as the regular chambers of the House of Representatives, it is Informants who had ousted Hon. Koffa from the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives without cause and without due process.
That Informants also says that the House of Representatives is its members, not the building in which they convene; and at whatever place a quorum of the House of Representatives meet, there where the House of Representatives legally is and can transact the business of the House of Representatives.
Your Honors inadvertently erred by assuming that if Hon. Koffa, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, was not at a meeting or sitting of the House of Representatives, then the convening of said meeting or sitting, even though the Deputy Speaker was present and presiding, is unconstitutional, null and void. Informants submit that it is the membership of the House of Representatives which constitute the Plenary of the House of Representatives, the highest decision-making body of the House of Representatives; and where the Deputy Speaker is present.
The petitioner prayed court to have the Amended Bill of information proceedings promptly re-docketed, disposed of it dispatch, the April 23,2025, opinion and judgment of your Honors in the aforesaid Bill of information proceeding recalled and quashed and the prayer of the return aforesaid Bill of information granted, cost to be ruled against respondents.