Lawyer Kowa Damns Local Chiefs By Minkailu Turay A senior member of the Peace and Justice Commission (PJC), Lawyer Robert Kowa has said that, the Tribal Chiefs and village Headmen just elected in the Western Rural District have no mandate by law to preside over a case and collect money from the accused persons or complainants in the matter. Speaking over the media yesterday, Lawyer Kowa noted that the role of these chiefs is to hold meetings with members of their various communities or tribes men when there is a problem in a bid to resolve it. He said the Chiefs should mediate between their people when there is a clash or problem to reconcile them and not to preside over cases thereby prescribing huge fines on the poor people. Mr. Kowa explained that many a time the chiefs illegally preside over some of these cases and impose unaffordable fines. He cited a case in Freetown in which one of the Chiefs prescribed a fine of Le1, 000,000 (One Million Leones) from a poor women. The erudite lawyer stressed that some of the ignorant populace who could not afford to pay the money would prefer to abandon the place of their residence and escape to other communities to avoid the harassment and molestation from the Tribal Chiefs or village Headmen. “Their actions are illegal and should no longer be tolerated with the emergence of the Peace and Justice Commission” Lawyer Kowa said noting that anyone who is brought before any chief and asked to pay a huge fine for whatever purpose must refuse. He maintained that in the event that, the chief harasses or molest him the victim must go to their office and complain. The Lawyer said all the elected chiefs recognized by the government receive salary from the state coffers and that there was no need to harass their people for money. He said a chief who asks for money to hear a case will definitely undermines the justice system.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 10:56:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015