Monrovia – Chief Justice Francis Korkpor entered the Supreme Court Tuesday, January 30 with his four Justices claiming that he has been receiving text messages containing death threats against him and his family.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian [email protected]
The revelation from the Chief Justice, which he emphasized for about five minutes in open court, came at the time the full bench of the High Court was seated for an appeal hearing from an election despite case from Nimba County’s District #4.
“Yesterday and today, I received text messages with threat to kill me and my family. This is a bad thing. We are two citizens of Nimba County on this bench and each of us on this bench has one vote,” he said.
“When it comes to any decision and that some of these decisions are decided strictly on legal basis.”
Chief Justice Korkpor said as Justices – “They will not see white and turned it black” as anything short of that will hunt them.
He pointed accusing fingers at some university students for the death threats text messages, adding, “They think we don’t know them, but we know some are from the UL and AMEU.”
He refuted media reports that the Supreme Court postponed the Nimba County’s District #4 election case in order to have one of the parties finalize arrangement with the Justices to reverse the decision of the NEC Board of Commissioners.
Chief Justice Korkpor termed the report as untrue and claimed he only know one of the parties in the case (Garrison Yealue) as a lawmaker of Nimba County and not the other party – Gunpue Kargon.
The appeal in the Nimba County District #4 was filed by incumbent lawmaker Garrison Yealue against the NEC Board of Commissioners’ decision to dismiss his complaint of fraud and mal-practices that marred the result of the election from the district.
Yealue’s complaint was dismissed by NEC board on the basis that he did not prove his case.
Incumbent lawmaker Yealue claimed he was declared winner of the election by the NEC Magistrate office of the district, but the result was single-handedly changed by the NEC Magistrate in Nimba County Princeton Monmia in favor of representative candidate Gunpue Kargon of the MDR without the consent of the other representative candidates.
NEC Magistrate Monmia denied the claim that he changed the result of the election from the district but stated that he discovered fraud in the result and he informed the NEC boss Jerome Korkoyah who asked him to scan the result and send it to him and it was in the office of Chairman Korkoyah that the result was changed, Monmia said.
The first hearing of the Nimba County District #4 appeal by the Supreme was set for last Wednesday, January 25, 2018 but the hearing was ordered postponed by the Supreme Court and reschedule for Tuesday, January 30, 2018.
On Tuesday, the high court was forced to order the postponement of the case after it was observed that the legal counsel of representative candidate Kargon, Cllr. Cooper Kruah, did not file his brief (legal Memorandum) on time.
Cllr. Kruah was fined by the high court US$500.00 payable within 72 hours for the late filing of his brief, while the Chief Justice has re-scheduled the case for Wednesday, January 31, at the hour of 1:00pm.