By Olando Testimony Zeongar
MONROVIA – The Economic Freedom Fighters of Liberia (EFFL), a newly certificated political party, has described as nonsense, what it calls President George Weah’s constant violation of the Liberian constitution, with the EFFL announcing that it has filed a lawsuit against the Liberian leader over his alleged attempt to abrogate the Code of Conduct (CoC) for public officials.
At a press conference at its Congo Town Headquarters on Monday, EFFL’s Commander-In-Chief, Mr. Emmanuel D. Gonquoi, announced that his party has filed a Writ of Prohibition against President Weah’s latest Executive Order #117.
Recently, President Weah issued Executive Order #117 mandating all appointed officials of government desirous of contesting elective posts in the country’s ensuing elections slated for October 10 later this year, to resign their current positions on or before 7 April 2023.
But the EFFL is of the belief that such an Executive Order, as issued by President Weah, does not just seek to abrogate existing laws and statutes, but is unconstitutional and belated, and must therefore, not be adhered to but be quashed and all officials in violation of the CoC be made to face the full weight of the law.
The EFFL leader, Gonquoi, asserted that his party believes that the issuance of Executive Order #117 by President Weah, is once again, another abuse of the organic law of the nation by the Liberian leader, who he accused of repeatedly abusing the Liberian constitution.
“The Economic Freedom Fighters of Liberia believes, considering the track record of the President’s consistent abuse of our Constitution that once again, he abused the Constitution by issuing an unlawful Executive Order,” CIC Gonquoi noted.
He maintained that EFFL believes President Weah’s Executive Order #117 is a total affront to the CoC and other existing statutes of Liberia, which he said the Liberian leader should have not done.
He wonders why President Weah is belatedly proceeding as if he’s serious to protect the Code of Conduct, when according to the EFFL CIC, the Liberian president is in violation of Part V Section 5.8 of the CoC, by appointing to posts, executive members and stalwarts of the governing Coalition for Democratic Change, who he accused of simultaneously holding executive positions in their political institutions while serving occupying the appointed offices.
Part V Section 5.8 states: “It is unlawful for any Civil Servant employed in any branch of the Government to use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or affecting the result thereof. No officer or employee in the Executive Branch of Government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects.”
Therefore, the EFFL made the call for officials of the Weah administration playing active roles as party executives to vacate their government jobs, charging them of being in violation of Part V Section 5.8 of the CoC.
Vowing to release within 72 hours’ time a comprehensive list of those in such category, Gonquoi named a few of such individuals as Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemaya Sr., Minister of Foreign Affairs and Political Leader, Movement for Economic Empowerment (MOVEE); Cllr. Cooper W. Kruah, Minister, Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, Chairman, Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction (MDR); and Atty. Augustus Janga Kowo, Comptroller and Accountant General, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, and Vice Chair for Legal Affairs, Congress for Democratic Change (CDC).
Others are Jefferson Tamba Koijee, Mayor, of Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) and Secretary General, CDC; George Sylvester Mulbah, Deputy Director General, of Liberia Civil Aviation Authority, and Vice Chairperson, of NPP; and Madam Piso Saydee Tarr, Minister of Gender, and Vice Chair for Gender, CDC.
“So, it is because of this that the Economic Freedom Fighters of Liberia today, took a bold step through our legal team to challenge the President’s Executive Order before the Supreme Court,” said CIC Gonquoi, who disclosed that the process to legally make President Weah rescind his decision of issuing Executive Order #117 has taken place, with the hope the high court will do what he termed the right thing to trash the President’s Executive Order #117, which he claims is in violation of the CoC.
“The President’s Executive Order # 117 issued on March 14, 2023, is another illegal act orchestrated to violate the statute, amended Code of Conduct, and create a false and hopeless impression of desiring to implement it,” said Gonquoi, who pointed out that the CoC, Part V, Section 5.2 is unambiguous, and states clearly that appointed officials and others desirous of contesting elective public offices within the Government of Liberia shall resign his or her position one year before the date of the post for which he or she intends to contest.
He added, “Considering that we have a few months away, the President issuing an Executive Order, is in total disregard to the Constitution or statutes of our country.”
Gonquoi, who observed that interestingly, President Weah deliberately refused to sign the CoC law was in December last year, even though it was passed by both the Liberian Senate and House of Representatives and the engrossed bill submitted to the Office of the President prior to October 7, 2022, and that after allegedly neglecting his presidential responsibility to sign such critical instrument promulgated by the Legislature, departed Liberia for over 48 days safari to several countries including Qatar, to watch his son play at the World Cup, and thereafter unto the United States of America, wondered, “How can the President of the Republic of Liberia issue an Executive Order in contravention of the existing statute?”
He argued that President Weah’s negligence of duty and his subsequent signing of the amended Part V, Section 5.2 and Part X, Section 10.2 on December 29, 2022, make such amendment unenforceable during the October 10, 2023 elections.
However, the EFFL political leader counter-argued that the amendment is still applicable to subsequent elections and that any attempt to insist on the applicability of the amendment in CoC Section 5.2, contravenes Article 21 (a) of the 1986 Constitution of Liberia which provides that “No person shall be made subject to any law or punishment which was not in effect at the time of the commission of an offense, nor shall the Legislature enact any bill of attainder or ex post facto law.”
He vowed that the EFFL will resist any attempt on the part of President Weah to abrogate the law to the detriment of the country, for the Liberian leader’s self-glorification, ego and political patronage.
“EFFL will resist him and defeat his unorthodox Executive Order # 117 through a Writ of Prohibition before the Justice in Chamber of the Honorable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia,” Gonquoi bragged Gonquoi, indicating, “We cannot live in a country where we will begin to have an imperial presidency – we have long campaigned against imperial presidency; people lost their lives. How come in the 21st century that we will begin to witness the advent of an imperial presidency.”
The EFFL political leader, who termed President Weah’s alleged constant violation of the country’s Constitution as nonsense that needs to be abolished, stressed, “We must be able to stand tall, as radical voices, civil society, critical institutions in the country, to say no to imperial presidency.”
