Following weeks of constitutional conflict between the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives as it relates to the impeachment of Associate Justice Kabineh Ja’neh, members of the lower house of the 54th legislature has unanimously voted for the impeachment of Justice Ja’neh.
The House reached the decision Tuesday, August 28, 2018 following the submission of an ad-hoc committees report to its plenary.
Plenary is the highest decision making body of the Legislature.
Prior to taking the decision, both the Legislative and Judiciary branches of government clashed over the idea as to who has the constitutional authority to abort or draw out impeachment procedure against any member of the separate institutions.
The Supreme Court, under the signature of Justice In Chamber, Sieneh Youh, issued a prohibition against the operation of the House of Representatives after it initially received a bill of impeachment from one of its members.
The prohibition was later overturned by the House due to the body’s claiming legitimate rights to carryon any impeachment procedure that will be in the best interest of the country.
Though many political commentators have called for calm between the two government’s run institutions, members of the House of Representatives have showed how serious they have taking matter.
On Tuesday morning, prior to the House taking its impeachment decision, some aggrieved citizens of Nimba County stormed the grounds of the Capitol Building calling for the body to abandon its quest to impeach their kinsmen.
According to the aggrieved citizens, removing Justice Ja’neh will not benefit the common people but will only satisfy the political desire of his critics.
“We are faced with many challenges in this country. There are lots of things this government needs to focus on in moving Liberia forward. The issue of high unemployment rate still remains one of the paramount concerns of this government. It must be addressed by this government,” Lawrance Suah told legislative journalists at the Capitol Building.
“Impeaching Justice Janeh will not benefit the over 3.4 million people of this country. This is while we are calling on the House of Representatives to abandon every impeachment procedure they going on with for the sake of moving the country forward,” he added.
Also, Lawmakers representing Nimba County in the House of Representatives declined to participate during the voting process of the impeachment bill.
The over five Nimba lawmakers walk out of the session before the impeachment votes were taken.
According to the recorder of the House of Representatives, out of the forty-nine lawmakers who were present for Tuesday’s session, twenty-three lawmakers voted in favor of the impeachment bill, while two voted against and one abstained.
