Monrovia – Defense lawyers representing the legal interest of Associate Justice Kabineh M. Ja’neh Wednesday, February 6, resisted attempts by lawyers representing the House of Representatives in the ongoing impeachment trial to infuse additional discovery instruments when the trial has already started.
Report by Henry Karmo [email protected]
Cllr. Syrenius Cephas and his team of lawyers seem to have slipped when they left out additional piece of evidence on a resolution, which was a promulgation procedure that governs impeachment proceeding of President, Vice President, Chief Justice and Justices of the Supreme Court.
Cllr. Arthur Johnson and team of lawyers, representing Justice Ja’neh, argued that because the prosecuting team failed to include the resolution amongst other discovery instruments when the defending team requested them, it could not be infused while the trial was ongoing. This, according to him, violates the doctrine of discovery.
“They did not give us the summery of the content of the witness’ testimony that appeared before the House of Representatives. They did not turn over standing rules governing the procedure at the level of the House of Representatives when requested for them to bring a resolution of the last minutes when the trial has started, it’s unfortunate,” Cllr. Arthur Johnson said.
The Chief Justice is expected to rule on the matter Thursday whether to accept or deny the additional discovery instrument.
Meanwhile, Representative Moses Acarous Gray Wednesday, March 6, took the witness stand to testify into the on-going impeachment trial of Justice Ja’neh. Representative Gray is one of two witnesses presented by the House of Representatives.
Testifying, Gray told senators, who are jurors in the case that Defendant Ja’neh is guilty of all counts he has been accused of. Those charges include ‘misuse of power, theft of property, misuse of public office and theft of confidential legislative documents.’
Gray was only quizzed by the prosecuting team and could not be quizzed by the defending team because of a very unfavorable condition in the chambers of the Senate. For hours, the power supply to the Capitol Building fluctuated making the condition in the chambers very uncomfortable, including it being dark for a long while. The trial continues today.
Earlier, the Chief Justice, who is presiding over the proceeding, denied a motion for Senator Varney Sherman and Pro-tempore Albert Chie to recuse themselves, from the proceeding to avoid conflict of interest in the matter.
Last week Justice Ja’neh pleaded not guilty in an impeachment trial against him at the Liberia Senate. In his ‘not guilty plea,’ he also filed a motion for discovery. His motion was accepted and given seven days to return for trial.
A motion of discovery is a formal process of exchanging information between the parties about the witnesses and evidence to be presented at a trial. The purpose of discovery is to make the parties aware of the evidence that may be presented at trial.
The Chief Justice said as a lone Justice presiding over the impeachment, he cannot do that which the law confers on the Full Bench of the Supreme Court of Liberia.
Chief Justice Francis Korkpor had also denied an earlier motion for dismissal filed by the defense team of Justice Ja’neh. In the Chief Justice’s ruling he said, the same constitutional issues raised in the Writ of Prohibition filed by the movant before the Supreme Court and similar issues were again raised in a re-petition filed by four senators concerning the impeachment of the movant.
“I cannot squash or dismiss this impeachment proceeding for several reasons. Key amongst them is to dismiss this proceeding means to put an end to this legislative proceeding. I cannot do this because neither the Constitution nor statutory law of our country gives me the authority to do so. “This is a trial conducted by the Liberian Senate in which I have no vote of power to decide. I cannot also squash this impeachment because under our law a single Justice cannot sit and decide constitutional issues,” the Chief Justice concluded.