Monrovia – Members of the House of Representatives have decided not to honor a stay order placed on their proceedings to impeach Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Kabineh Ja’neh.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
Justice in Chambers, Associate Justice Sie-A-Nyene G. Yuoh notified the House of Representatives to appear in her chambers on August 18, 2018 to show cause why the writ of prohibition on the proceedings to impeach Associate Justice Ja’neh as petitioned at the Court by him should not be granted.
Members of the House on Saturday, the same day they were to appear before the Justice I Chambers, held an emergency session where the majority voted not to honor the Supreme Court’s citation.
The lawmakers, according to reports, decided that the Supreme Court must withdraw its Writ of Prohibition if it wants dialogue with them.
“If the Court means business, let them withdraw the stay order; we come today and say we will not honor. The Supreme Court should have first requested a conference before placing the stay order and that is where I think they erred,” one senior member of the House of Representative said to FPA.
FrontPageAfrica has also learned that the leadership of the House of Representatives will meet Justices of the Supreme Court behind closed doors to amicably resolve the issue in order to avoid crisis between the two branches of government.
Source abreast with the developments in the House hinted FrontPageAfrica that Members of the House are disenchanted with the adamant posture of Speaker Bhofal Chambers who they claim has failed to realize there was a procedural error in the filing of the impeachment.
“The Speaker seems not to be listening to advice; we have told him just as the Justice erred by issuing a stay order before calling for a conference, we to have erred with the way we are going about with this impeachment proceedings and if he is not careful he might be impeached,” the source said.
The Associate Justice’s stay order on the impeachment proceedings of Justice Ja’neh stems from a 14-count petition for the writ of prohibition filed before her by five lawyers, Cllrs. James E. Pierre, Laveli Supuwood, Emmanuel James, Johnny Momoh and Arthur Johnson opposing the bill of impeachment forwarded to the House of Representatives by two lawmakers from Montserrado County, Acarous Gray and Thomas Fallah.